All Is Fair In Love and War
by Maggie Wilde
Summary: Alliance Engineer Laurel Westfahl makes a catastrophic mistake that costs her squadmates, her career and nearly her life. 10 years after the First Contact War, 2167, by chance she meets one of her old turian captors. A rather complicated love story. Human OFC x Turian OMC *ON HIATUS*
1. Chapter 1

She couldn't breathe. She couldn't smell. She couldn't think. The last vision she had were of the walls crumbling around her.

 _They must have found us._

She tried to move her body – there was a sudden sharp pain in her arm.

 _Probably broken._

They were counting on her. If she'd blown it, her ass was on the line. And that was more than likely. She only had four years experience in the Alliance Navy since joining at twenty. Yet her dedication and commitment earned her at least the more respectable role of bomb disposal expert. And this was why she was here. It'd been nearly three months since the First Contact War started, since they first met an extra-terrestrial species. As warned by countless scientists, media and popular fiction beforehand, these sentient species were not friendly in the slightest.

The Alliance Navy on a top-secret mission had sent her with four others, one her superior, to disarm a probe armed with nuclear fusion warheads. Why had it been her, not someone with more experience, with more expertise? Her superiors must've trusted her, wanted her to rise further up the ranks even though she was an NCO and could only get so far. Their forces had been stretched enormously, and she was the one tasked for the job.

Something suddenly shifted and light broke through. It was difficult to remember what had happened. She heard voices, deep rumbling voices with a distinctive flanging. Fear struck her heart, as she lay there inert. It was a miracle she was even alive. But in this moment she wished she were dead. As more rubble was shifted off her, the pain from her upper arm soon spread to her entire body. All she saw at first were tall, armed figures with incomprehensible, fearsome faces. There was a hollow scream at the back of her throat, but nothing came out of her mouth. Two figures took her arms and heaved out of the remains of God-knows what building there were in.

She allowed herself then to shriek with pain as they tugged on her arms and forced them behind her back. She didn't really remember the journey after that, only the smoking ruins and the hot air dense with humidity. Warm blood ran thick down her temple. She was transferred to a makeshift prison, still unable to understand the language of those around her. But she knew who they were.

 _Those aliens._ She was a dead woman.


	2. Chapter 2

Laurel Westfahl found out at least one thing when she was brought to her cell and shoved in there without as much a hello.

They were on Shanxi, the human colony, and it was currently occupied. The garrison had capitulated, despite the guerrilla gangs that attempted to drive out the alien invaders. The cell was small, damp and looked like a bombed out police station – although most of it remained intact. Rather convenient for them, she thought. There was nothing she could sit on, it appeared these aliens had stripped the entire building of its contents and replaced it with their own. She heard a steady dripping of a tap somewhere and only dreamt of water. They left her there for a long time; she wasn't sure how long. The power was either out or they purposely left her in the dark. Time played tricks on your mind when you didn't know if the sun was up or down, and darkness constantly surrounded you. Laurel took this time to assess her wounds.

Thankfully, she got away lightly. Her right upper arm was definitely broken, as she could barely lift it to touch her shoulder. How badly broken she didn't know but it was now as big as a melon. There was a searing pain down the middle of her forehead, one that felt like her skull was being cracked in half with a chisel and hammer. Her clothes were filthy, after realising they'd stripped her of her armour and weapons, leaving her only in her black mesh undersuit. She was grateful she wore an extra hoodie underneath her gear, and pulled it up and round her body. Space was cold. Her lace-up boots were still on her feet, too. To lose one's shoes was the worst possible thing in a situation like this.

It was probably the bump on her head but she couldn't remember what had happened. Did they disarm the bomb? Had those aliens disarmed it themselves? No, they couldn't have. Why was she found on Shanxi under a pile of rubble? If she ever got out of here, there were going to be questions. A horrid feeling of dread nestled in the pit of her stomach. Somehow, she remembered certain feelings…one of betrayal. Yet there was the nasty feeling that she'd cocked it up big time. She also tried to remember what the aliens looked like, but her trip from the collapsed building was hazy. All she knew was that they were humanoid, which she was grateful for. It could only be so much worse.

What seemed like days later, the door of her cell opened, and an obtrusive light was shone in her direction. Laurel was curled on the floor squinting, cradling her broken arm. The figure began talking to her.

"Get up, human," it barked at her.

Why did she understand it? Translators were limited to only human language. She stirred, grunting in pain. The pain in her head hadn't subsided. Laurel pulled herself to her feet to face this alien, not wanting to anger it.

"I have a right to know where I am and who you are," she said quickly, with a tremor in her voice. The alien's raptor-like face tautened as he regarded her with small, beady eyes. His face was covered by a rigid mask of brown-grey cartilage and bone, flaring outwards in a spiked cowl at the top. Then, to her astonishment, he laughed.

"You have no rights at the moment human. Out."

She didn't like its patronising tone of voice. He motioned with his gun, away from the door. Too frightened to ask for water, she slowly walked out of the cell, not daring to look at the alien in the eye. She presumed it was a he, judging by the size of his cowl, who pressed the barrel of the gun into her back and forced her forward. It was unnerving to be lead somewhere she didn't recognise, with no one in front to guide her. She kept turning round when coming across a corridor with several doors, but as an answer the alien returned to pressing the gun into her back. Finally, they came to a large room - what she presumed was the old chief of police's room. Anything that was remotely human was taken off the walls, bookshelves and the huge desk in the middle of the room. There were two doors at the back, both guarded.

The alien she now faced was stood in front of the desk, pacing, and his arms behind his back. The guard forced her into the middle of the room, so she faced the leader of this alien faction, she thought. He waved off the guard behind her and stared at her with piercing yellowy eyes. His thick plated skin was of a dark mushroom colour, but what was more striking was the tribal war paint on his faceplates. It was a dark green colour, which made his eyes all the more penetrating. His armour was larger and thicker than the others, and completely black. He must be high-ranking she thought, for he had rather plain insignia - seven stripes - on his upper arm. He stood at a giant six foot six, dwarfing her rather puny five foot five. His three-fingered gloved hands were tipped with talons.

"I expect answers, human," he said. The mandibles on his face moved as he spoke. _Oh God._ She remembered sod all.

"I lost over three-hundred men on my ship when a human nuclear probe detonated." He moved closer to her and it took all her strength not to flinch, as she stood there so pathetically clutching at her broken arm.

It wasn't disarmed. The probe wasn't disarmed. _What in the fucking fuck._

"I hope you're not a time waster, like so many other humans have been," he snapped. He wouldn't stop pacing furiously. She saw he had a sidearm holstered.

 _Stay calm. Do not appear weak._ "Because my patience wears thin very quickly, unlike the other captains." He stopped pacing and then began to analyse her.

"I want the name of you and your ship, soldier. You've been cooperative so far and pitifully quiet. I'll grant you at least one easy question." She swallowed hard in thought before answering.

"C-Collins," she bit out. The alien in front of her pulled his mandibles together in what looked like a smirk. He signalled one of his men over, who had a hand-held terminal in his hand.

"Sergeant Laurel A. Westfahl is your name," he said, mispronouncing her name. _Bad translation_ , she thought.

"Twenty-four years of age, born 2133. You belong to the Engineering Corps, Alliance Navy. Says here you dropped out of education at fifteen, joined the Alliance at twenty. No parents to speak of – yet it says here you cut all ties with your family in 2150. How mortifying for you."

He looked up from the terminal before throwing it back to one of his men roughly.

"Your criminal record of vandalism, possession of drugs and drink driving is disturbing at worst, seeing as you're military. Hardly very impressive credentials, Westfahl...You surely can't expect me to think you're some simple lost adolescent? My supply lines have been sabotaged, as well as a nearby turian camp. I find myself wondering what that's got to do with three-hundred of my soldiers getting killed by a human nuclear bomb," he said to her, leaning against the desk, arms now folded. His avian features watched her with intensity, like a raptor watching an unsuspecting mouse. Something compelled her to say something, now that she was so rudely shamed.

"How did you get that information?" was all she could say. The smirk was wiped from his face and he stood back up. Her heart began to pound. She'd been fairly composed before, but something twisted and churned in her gut like an angry sea. He looked like he was barely holding himself back from ripping her apart.

"I believe you are not at liberty to ask that question," he snapped. "You forget we are on a human colony, at a law-enforcement station? Do you think I'm stupid? Do you?"

Like a misbehaving school child, she looked at the ground unable to look at his piercing yellow eyes.

"Pathetic."

Those were the last words she heard before she was thrown back into her cell. She had a feeling they were not going to be as nice to her the second time.


	3. Chapter 3

Ignoring the pain in her arm, Laurel desperately tried to get some sleep.

She needed to regain her strength. Her mouth was thick and dry as if she'd been sucking on a sponge. The pain in her head was gone, but the agony felt in her arm was enough. The swelling had only worsened, and the skin felt raw as it was nearly stretched beyond its limits. That alien's words danced round in her head like a carousel. Of course he had access to her files – although how or why they were listed on a computer in a police station on Shanxi - she grew up on Earth. Then she remembered how she and other friends stowed away on a cargo ship to Shanxi, drunk and rowdy. It was miraculous she'd been accepted into the Alliance. It was bad enough she couldn't remember what had happened, bad enough that she'd been caught, but why had he been so patronising with her?

She only presumed, as humans did, that they thought themselves superior. They must've used their own technology, for she could understand everything they said. The guards who were sometimes outside talked enough so that they were in earshot. They called themselves _turian_. Their captain was Captain Absedeus Marik, or what she could catch of it in any case. She didn't hear any other names. But she did hear them blame her for the nuclear probe. They were supposed to have captured it! Disarm it, capture it and take it back home to be dismantled! If it was his ship that had been destroyed, then why was he still alive?

Several times after the first she was taken out and questioned, only for them to be given nothing. The frequent visits to Marik made her think days had passed but when she caught an old clock in one of the bombed offices, it had only been mere hours. They were tricking her, giving her time to be afraid in the dark. They then left her for two or three days, giving her a small bowl of water. The hunger hadn't hit her yet. She knew they were going to do something. She tried not to imagine anything, but lying on the cold, damp floor in the dark alone for so long played with her mind. _Let them break my body, she then said to herself. Let them really hurt me. I will not give into these turians. I won't. They won't break my soul._ But the amnesia wasn't wearing off, and cold terror filled her. This time, the turian who came to fetch her handcuffed her from behind. Her broken arm throbbed at being pulled back behind her. She was lead to a much smaller room, where Marik was sat, tall and restrained in his chair. The other turians were all like him, disciplined, not a foot out of line. They kept their eyes on the walls opposite, standing straighter than a rod. Slave driver, she thought as she was forced down into the chair opposite Marik.

"No time for formalities, Westfahl," he greeted her, his sharp gaze resting on her.

She didn't say anything, regarding him with a stony glare. He didn't like this tiny insubordination, however. He leapt up from his chair, banging his talons on the table in front of her. She barely flinched this time, but it was difficult to keep her knees straight and unmoving.

"I want blood, human," he said. "The Council talks of calling both sides off, but I won't listen to bureaucrats and lying politicians. Not when I have a ship down and three hundred dead. And they deserve the truth. The sabotaged camp and supply lines need explanation too. You have told us nothing. I tried to be reasonable with you."

"I don't remember," she said through her gritted teeth. "The building you found me in had collapsed, I hit my head." He barked out a laugh, leaning forward.

"Somehow I think that's a very convenient answer," he hissed. He pulled away angrily, having noticed her trembling. He spent some time looking like he was gathering his thoughts, interlinking his talons calmly on the desk.

"You've been here for four days. My time is short, yet you've told me nothing. You can have it the hard way, or the easy way if you tell me what I want to hear now," he said. He stayed sitting at the desk. She said nothing, only kept her eyes on his, trying to control her shaking. Time felt like it extended as they kept their eyes locked.

What then happened so unpredictably Laurel didn't have time to react. The guard behind had hit her so hard she immediately toppled from her chair to the floor. She lay on the floor inert with her hands useless, the guard stood above her holding a rod. The turian captain narrowed his avian eyes a little.

"The hard way it is, Westfahl," he said above her, pure ire in his voice.

The guard started to then beat her with such vicious force that she felt her bones were being re-arranged. Shooting upwards, as if to run for the door, the turian clubbed her from behind. He pushed her against the door, roughly kicking her off her feet. Without the full use of her hands, Laurel crashed to the floor, right on her broken upper arm. A resounding howl escaped from her mouth. Now as she lay on the ground, she was inert and powerless. The guard didn't give her a chance to sit up as he beat her viciously into the ground. Every inch of her body screamed in agony, and it was hard to contain her cries. By the time the guard was done, she was at the edge of losing consciousness. She could feel a couple of loose teeth, along with several broken ribs and fingers. With her eyes blurry and the world dizzy, Laurel could see nothing, but the motion of the captain making to leave the room. Before he did, he bent down to her at eye-level.

"You will talk." Laurel fought the urgency of shouting back, but it didn't work, and she spoke through the blood that was dripping out of her mouth, and trailing down her chin.

"Not for you, you brute," she hissed, her muscles clenching in spasms as the guard dealt another blow to her abdomen. She had spat so hard at him that some of her blood landed on his leg. He ignored it. Marik stood back up, fixing her with a terrible glare. When her beating had eventually stopped, she was lying on her side, breathing hard. Blood was pounding hard in her ears. She then noticed Marik's large, taloned feet in front of her face, just inches away. It was almost a warning. Instead he bent back down to analyse her.

"Changed your mind, yet human?" Laurel slowly shook her head, as she lay there on the ground, stationary. Tears of pain ran in rivulets down her dirty cheeks. He flashed a chastised expression. With that he left, and she was dragged back to her lonely cell.

Laurel later received more water, but she still hadn't eaten for days. She heard gunfire and explosions continually outside. The war had to be coming to a close. They'd made sure to leave her for what felt so long but she was certain she'd been forgotten. They hadn't been as brutal as she thought they might've been. What was holding them back? She could tell they were a highly disciplined, controlled species. The blasts and gunfire from outside occasionally lit up the walls as she lay there, one leg drawn up to her chest, as she lay against the wall. Laurel tried not to dwell as she sat there, desperately trying to ignore the intense pain she felt all over her body. Her arm had dulled slightly, but she felt the throbbing pain in her broken fingers more than ever. Both hands. Would she be able to hold a weapon properly anymore?

The smell of death lingered in the air.


	4. Chapter 4

The door unbolted, shining a patch of light onto Laurel. The turian nudged her roughly with his foot, holding a small bowlful of stale water. Slowly getting up, she looked at him nervously before taking a handful. Slurping some of it desperately, she used the rest to wash her face. The water, when she was done with it, was now redder. Ignoring this, she took another slurp of water, rinsing and spitting it out onto the floor. Her tongue couldn't stop poking at her loose, bleeding teeth. This time the turian guard didn't bind her wrists, much to her relief.

Being beaten without the use of her hands was even worse, and had resulted in her broken fingers. The guard lead her to another dark grey room, probably the same she'd been in before. She glanced warily about the room, her heart beginning to pound again. Marik was sat back at the desk. She saw a dark brown stain on the floor. _My blood_. A makeshift light in the corner of the room was unnaturally bright. Something didn't feel right, the atmosphere had changed. Something must've happened. Marik continued to look at the terminal in his taloned hands, ignoring her for several moments. He waved off the guard behind her, who left the room without another word. Laurel watched Marik carefully, as he stood up to his full height and walked round to the front of the desk, inches from her.

"I'm growing tired of having to ask you the same questions over and over again," he began, staring at her. She bit her lip, trying to carefully word her next sentence.

"If you were in my place, wouldn't you do the same thing?" she asked him.

His yellow eyes and mandibles widened slightly, before regaining his composure.

"I wouldn't have fwroka up from the start," he replied.

Something hadn't translated properly but she guessed it wasn't meant to be a pleasant word. He began pacing angrily, his hands back behind him.

"I'm not exactly sure what game you're playing with me, human," he warned her, the sub-harmonics in his voice rumbling with the end of each syllable. "But I can only infer from what little information I have. Your unit had been sent out to disarm that bomb. Except it detonated. An unidentified vessel, a human frigate had been detected in turian space. This frigate crash landed on this pitiful colony. You were found in a collapsed building, with your ID linked to that very ship. You were its bomb disposal expert. Explain."

"You call us callous," she said, her voice small, looking at the floor. "But you were the ones who opened fire on unidentified vessels, instead of negotiating. How were we to know the do's and the don'ts of the galaxy?" She then met his eyes. "Is that how you always respond to unknowns, Captain?"

Marik looked like he wanted to hit her, coming to stand close enough to her that could she feel the hatred surging off him. He suddenly grabbed her by the front of her jacket, lifting her off the ground, pulling her close enough to his face. She could see flecks of brown in his eyes.

"I don't care if I have to break every bone in your wretched little body, human," he hissed into her face. She was so close to him that she could feel his hot breath on her face. She recoiled in disgust, trying to pull away from his frightening features. He let her down roughly, just as another guard came into the room.

"You nearly have," she whispered, thinking he wouldn't hear, but he did. His eyes narrowed as he pondered for a moment.

"You're about to witness just what kind of Captain I am, Sergeant. Let's see how weak your flawed physiology is."

She hadn't noticed there was a large sink in the corner of the room. A dirtied, broken fridge amongst countertops sat beside the large, enamel sink. They took away what little clothes she had left. She stood there, trying to control her trembling and chattering teeth. _Why was it so cold? Or was she just petrified out of her damn mind?_ It was hard to feel unashamed standing in just a vest and undergarments, watching these aliens regard her frail human body with mockery. She knew how bad it must've looked; her swollen fingers and upper arm, the contusions all over her body, her black eyes and swollen nose. She looked at them, totally unprotected and defenceless.

The clothes were all that she had to protect her. The guard took hold of her and bound her wrists. Before could she could struggle, he lead her towards the full sink. He roughly pushed her head into the water. It was glacial in temperature, and she immediately choked from the shock of the iciness. Her head whirred and screamed. The guard pulled her back up, as she choked and spluttered, desperately trying to breathe in oxygen. But it was for a fraction of a second before her head was plunged back under the water. Every inch of her body was screaming for air and the freezing water made her head split with the pain. The turian guard held her under the water for longer, but she tried to hold the last ounce of air in her lungs. She heard their voices.

"She's trying not to breathe, sir."

The water began to seep in her mouth, trickling down her throat. Her lungs were empty, about to burst. She finally choked as she felt a wallop from behind, her legs nearly buckling underneath her. Her body contorted, and the pain from her broken ribs nearly made her howl in pain. Exhaustion overtook her, and she stopped struggling as the guard forced her down. Her mind was failing, and the water filled her lungs quickly. She grew silent, the choking having stopped, realising she was drowning. She fell into unconsciousness seconds later.

 _Get up Westfahl! You miserable, pathetic excuse for a soldier! For a human!_

Was it Marik or her mind telling her this? She suddenly woke up, coughing out heaps of water. They didn't help her, and left her to vomit. They've must've revived her; otherwise she would've died. Her undergarments were soaked, and clung to her wet skin, which had erupted with goosebumps. She'd bitten on her tongue and blood poured from her mouth. Marik came into view, watching her. She was still coughing and heaving as he began regarding her with those pitiless eyes, as he rested on his haunches.

"Your lips are purple, human," he said. "Are you ready to tell me what I want to hear?"

She began to shiver uncontrollably, her muscles evoking terrible spasms. Laurel finally regained whatever semblance of strength she had left and looked at him as she lay there.

"Why did you revive me?" she asked him. His mandibles twitched, as his eyes pierced her.

"Hoping to die so soon?" he said to her. "I don't think you'd do it in honour for your pitiful 'Alliance' military."

"What then? You want an apology?!" she snapped.

"Testing my patience with your defiance? You're doing a fine job of it."

"One of my more finer skills." He regarded her a little longer and stood back up, beginning to pace again.

"You may think me cruel, but I'm nothing compared to some of my superiors. I fear I have been too easy on you. But you will pay for your war crimes – you and whatever unit decided to send a probe into turian space."

"I don't KNOW what happened! We were meant to defuse the bomb!" she croaked. "If I could remember, BY GOD I'd have told you by now." He twisted back round, with a vicious, predatory look on his face. He stood on her already broken fingers. She screamed in anguish.

"That is why you're so contemptible," he snapped, ignoring her cries. "No sense of worth, or honour, no dignity. What I find lacking in you, human, is that yes, I have the facts about your record. There is no secret there. No government giveaways, no military tactics…I want only the truth about what happened to my men. And I'll make sure you pay."

Laurel lay there still after her crying calmed, tears pouring from her eyes. She moved her head to stare at him. He was back on his haunches, unbearably close.

"This is not an interrogation," she rasped, her voice broken. "You're punishing me."

"So determined to prove you're not weak by answering back…" he said, standing back up. "But you deserve punishment for what you did."

"Fuck you. You know nothing about me," she snapped. He studied her for longer – what felt like an eternity to her.

"Oh I think I can guess," he said and waved the guards over.

They heaved her upwards and dragged her, shaking and drenched, back to her cell. _Why didn't they let me die,_ she said to herself, and buried her head in her arms. _I was on the verge of death, and they kept me alive_. She was left there, for a few days, with scraps of food and water. Her pain made her drift in and out of consciousness. They beat her until she was near unrecognisable.

Weeks later, she was eventually found by the Alliance. The short war had finally ended.


	5. Chapter 5

**10 Years Later – 2167**

"General," greeted an old friend when the front door had been opened.

"That's a title I haven't gone by for a long time," said Absedeus, his apartment door closing behind him. Vuren hadn't changed that much unlike him, his colony markings still bright on his mahogany plates. They began the walk down the relatively quiet ward, where they didn't see a single soul until Vuren hailed a skycar cab.

"It's still strange to see you settled in an apartment on the Citadel, of all places," continued Vuren as they headed towards Zakera Ward, a favourite haunt of theirs.

"I hate bureaucrats and politicians….but they insist that I reside here. To "advise" them." Vuren turned to look at Absedeus' expression of disgust. He was a military man, through and through, thought Vuren. But there was something that lingered of regret, of bitterness in the turian's weather-beaten face.

"I do regret you are five years my junior. Still on the _Ontarian_?" said Absedeus. "You must be well overdue a promotion, Captain."

"Yes, although I'm to be transferred to the _Obsidian_ next turnover. If they're considering a rank rise, they haven't notified me as of yet," Vuren joked.

Absedeus Marik watched the traffic of the Citadel whiz by them as he briefly looked out of the window. Bright neon colours all blended into each other, moving shapes that were unrecognisable as they sped through the thick, intense haze of the wards…. He could never get used to living on a space station. He was better suited on a dreadnought or carrier, where he'd always been. Probably why he was feeling so old and crabby these days. And cynical too. Like many turian veterans, the human newcomers aggressively immersing themselves in politics, setting up colonies and trade alliances had troubled him greatly. They were developing too fast for his liking.

He liked to dispute with arrogant humans at times, engaging them in a debate, often at bars after a few drinks. He'd always bring up the fact that human society was barely beginning when the turians had been granted a seat on the Citadel Council, that they'd achieved spaceflight when humans could barely hold a hammer. It wasn't long before the cab arrived at Zakera.

"There's a fairly new bar that's opened. It caters for dextro _and_ levo foods, apparently," said Vuren a hint of light-hearted sarcasm in his sub-vocals, as they headed for the stairs leading to Level 28.

"I'm not sure whether to feel pleased or merely disgusted," replied Absedeus, which made Vuren pull his mandibles into a smirk. The bar, or restaurant wasn't different in appearance from any other bar on the ward. That was the way Absedeus liked it. Clean, simple and not staffed solely by other species. He preferred seeing another turian face in sight.

"You've could've done worse," said Absedeus as they seated themselves at the bar.

The bar itself was chrome and the rather large range of alcohol on the unit behind the counter was headache-inducingly colourful. The lights were dim, and beside the bar were corner booths, tables intended for couples and large tables for big groups. There was low, bass-intense music that he didn't recognise in the background. Odd-looking artwork on the walls. Funny shapes on plain backgrounds – that was art? Was this place…human?

"Although I am beginning to dislike what I am seeing…" he suddenly said, looking around. Vuren barked out a laugh.

"I know you well enough to be insubordinate but…you ought to relax a little, Marik," said Vuren.

"I regret the fact you do know me well enough," countered Marik, swiping at the holo-menu on the surface of the bar.

"You've never loosened up, have you? Not enough for a woman either. It's a pity. At fifty-one I'd say you're doing pretty well," joked Vuren.

Marik, if he wasn't glad it was the end of the week, might've chided Vuren for his irreverence. Instead he nearly smiled.

"Was never the bonding type," he muttered.

He looked up and glanced around at the bar's customers. A large young-looking krogan sat at the end of the bar, his head in his arms. Surely not? The evening had just begun. A group of asari in one of the corner booths, accompanied by a couple of human males... A drabble of salarians and turians, who'd sat at the large table, making more of a racket than the asari. There were also a couple of lone humans, who were seated away from everyone else, eyeing them consciously.

"Is this a human bar?" said Absedeus. "The service is appalling. Where are the bar staff?"

"Now, now, don't judge so quickly…" said Vuren. Absedeus's temper was easily provoked, and his stomach was rumbling. He also need something stiff, something to ease the thirty-year headache that so often erupted along his front crest plates above his eyes. A couple of humans, much to his distaste, had come round from the back. The human male hadn't spotted them at first, and the human female was busy with lugging a large crate onto the bar.

"I need you to do that goddamn overtime on Sunday, final word," he hissed to the female. Absedeus, despite being at the other end of the bar happened to have the hearing of a bat. The human female snorted, her face obscured by an unruly mass of short brown hair, as she unloaded the crate, clanking the bottles together.

"You never pay me time and a half on a Sunday, Jon. I've gotta pay rent, my asshole of a-"

"Talk later. Table six is ready, they've been waiting for over ten minutes now!"

"We've been waiting for over ten minutes," said Absedeus loudly.

The human male, bald and large nosed with pale skin pathetically scarpered up to them, his holo-pad and stylus in his hand straight away.

"Terribly sorry gentleman, we are very short on staff tonight-"

"Maybe if you paid your employees double on that Sunday, yes? Maybe you'd attract more employees…and then you wouldn't be so short. And you also wouldn't try my patience-" Vuern suddenly put an arm round Absedeus's carapace, cutting him off.

"What he means to say is we'd like two Opioms," he said.

The bartender looked confused for a moment before nodding, seemingly unfazed by Absedeus. He worked in customer service; he was probably used to it all the time.

"Are you interested in ordering food?" he then asked. The human female at the other end of the bar was still clanking bottles and generally making a racket.

"If the dextro food is made by humans then I will kindly refrain," snapped Absedeus. The man didn't even blink.

"All food is prepared by Relena, our excellent turian chef. Would you like me to introduce you to her?" he said. This human was mocking him, and he wanted to slam his fragile skull straight into the chrome of the bar.

"We'll pass," said Vuren quickly. He pointed to one of the more popular turian delicacies on the menu to the bartender.

"I thought you'd jump at the chance," said Absedeus, still irritated.

"What? At meeting Relena? Hey, I'm not getting involved in your love life, jokes aside," said Vuren, his mandibles tautening slightly.

Absedeus watched the human male make the drinks, scrutinising his every action. This was a regular turian spirit, mixed with a variety of other softer non-alcoholic drinks. It was sweet and bitter to the tongue, but not something he regularly indulged in. He was surprised at Vuren's choice. He usually stuck to his usual: Reynor, a distilled beverage that was made from seed pellets named reyn naturally found on Palaven. It was his species miracle grain: everything from alcoholic beverages to the bases of many foods that weren't originally from livestock was made from reyn. Reynor, unfortunately, had been his partner for the last ten years, a love-hate relationship that had resulted in severe consequences for his career.

"What is this awful music?" he suddenly snapped, after the human male had given them their drinks in the usual tall tubes. Vuren sniggered into his drink.

" _Sultans of Swing_ ," called a voice below the bar. It was that human female, still clanking around bottles.

"The sultans of what?" he said. "Is it human?" The drink was refined and sharp on his tongue as he sipped. A warm pleasure had spread from his chest down to his spurs.

"Human," said the voice. "Dire Straits, 1979…Not sure what it'd be on your timeline…" Absedeus was silent, having nothing further to say. He was certainly not going to endure a cultural lesson on human music, he thought.

"It was a mistake to come to this bar," he growled at Vuren.

"And I thought you were enjoying it," joked Vuren. The human female below probably hadn't heard them because she kept talking.

"One of the best guitar solos…definitely began to shape rock and roll during…" her voice trailed off.

"Surely out-dated, even by your standards?" said Vuren.

"Nearly two hundred years old…yes. But it's timeless. I chose the music, just wanted to …make the bar seem different," the human female said as she bent back upwards, turning to face the turians. As she looked at them, her face blanched for the briefest of moments. She was wearing high-waisted trousers that accentuated her waistline accompanied by a loose mint-green blouse. Her eyes Absedeus noted, a peculiar light blue, widened. She swallowed several times, pulled a small smile as if to excuse herself and walked quickly from the room. Both turians watched her scuttle off in confusion.

"What was that about?" said Vuren.

"She clearly had no idea she was talking to a pair of turians…" replied Absedeus, amused for a moment.

Her eyes looked very familiar, but he couldn't place a finger on it. Why would a pair of bulging human eyes look familiar to him? He certainly didn't spend his time studying the eye colour of humans. He forgot about it soon enough as he drunk himself into that same stupor, ignoring the fact that he'd meant to socialise with Vuren.


	6. Chapter 6

She knew that face only too well.

She had to walk extremely quickly towards the toilet, which was out the back. One of the chefs asked if she was okay, as she had to cross through the steamy kitchen. Locking the door behind her, she opened the entire contents of her stomach into the toilet bowl until her insides felt quite empty. That face. Why here, of all places? She made sure that her past wouldn't chase her, but here it was, causing a stink right in front of her. Jon was suddenly banging on the door.

"LAUREL! If you're having another cig in there I'm firing your ass! Relena just said you darted through the kitchen! I've got half a dozen hungry customers chasing my tail feathers! Last warning!"

"Christ! Can I take a single shit or are you taking that time off my paycheck!?" she forced, her voice stronger than she'd realised.

"Half a minute more!" she heard him call back.

She sat on the toilet seat, feeling her hands tremble. She wiped them on her black trousers as she tried to pull herself together. Laurel glanced down at her hands, with her slightly distorted, misaligned fingers. Goddammit, she moaned to herself. That past had been and gone. She tried her best to wipe it from her mind. She'd have to give this job up…how would she pay rent? The place she rented currently was too expensive, but then again would she want to move somewhere cheaper but rougher? Oh, how she wanted to tell Jon to shove it, and stick his hungry customers up his asshole. Could she take another five hours of this shit, with potentially serving someone who used to be her captor, all those years ago? Moving to the Citadel had been a bad call on her part she'd later found out. She still wasn't very comfortable being around turians, and it was likewise. It had been ten years and things had massively improved. But humans were still not looked on favourably, and most of the other (Council) races outnumbered them on the Citadel.

 _I can't do it. I just can't._ She caught her expression in the mirror. Her thin face was white. She ran cool water over her face, before taking a deep breath returning to the bar area.

 _Deal with it. Otherwise you'll have no job and then it's the streets._

Laurel walked back out, keeping a calm expression although her hands shook. Jon was serving, so thankfully she didn't receive an earful. She approached a group of asari, who gave her a somewhat haughty look when she approached.

"Well its about time," one of them said, making the others smirk.

"Are you ready to order?" Laurel asked, her voice shaking slightly. It's been ten years woman, ten years. You told yourself you weren't weak anymore.

"We've been waiting for our drinks, they haven't even turned up yet," said another.

"I do apologise," replied Laurel with gritted teeth, taking out her holo-pad and stylus. "We're short-staffed. With whom did you place the order with?"

"The ugly bald human. Why ask? Isn't that the only other staff member?" sniffed the first asari. Laurel looked over towards Jon, who was busy taking another order. She couldn't see the drinks prepared, as she looked over towards the bar. Him and his buddy were still there.

"Okay, I will go and make them," said Laurel. She hated apologising for other people's mistakes, especially if it made her look stupid in front of sneering customers.

"Oh so they _haven't_ been prepared?" said the asari, her voice rising.

"I'll make them for you," said Laurel quickly, hoping to quell the asari's anger. "What were your orders?"

"Oh for heaven's sake," snapped the asari. She re-took their order, and moved towards the bar. Her hands were still shaking, and she turned her back on the turians as soon as she got there. She was still unnerved by their presence at times, even though ten years had passed. Most of the time she was polite and reserved, happy to keep conversation and interaction to a minimum. She had a couple of years where she felt like she'd let most of it go…even the old chestnuts that liked to rear their ugly heads. Her parents she'd got over - until she'd seen her younger sister that summer, her old Alliance commander and was assaulted in a mugging involving a turian. She shook the memories away, taking a spirit bottle in her hand and pouring it easily into the canisters. She still wasn't very good at making alien drinks, which at times required more concentration, especially the asari cocktails. It was hard to keep her trembling hands steady as she mixed the drinks, and eventually failed when she let one glass slip. It resulted in a crash in the sink below her.

"That's IT!" she heard a yell. "I've seen better service from a volus!" Laurel quickly tried to sweep up the mess in the sink.

"Half an hour you wasted of my time! You do realise that I'll be going on social media and telling everyone what an awful restaurant you are!" the asari shouted over towards the bar. Laurel brought herself up to face her.

"Do your worst," she snapped. The asari's face dropped slightly.

"What?" she muttered.

"I don't give a shit what you say on the extranet," said Laurel matter-of-factly. The asari, open-mouthed, twisted back round and flounced off with her group. She was glad Jon was still trying to take customer orders. She heard a snigger to the right of her, seeing it was the turian with the brown plates. His colony markings were much brighter compared to his, a vivid red colour – a colour that looked too much like blood. She pointedly ignored him and began throwing the pre-made drinks into the sink.

"Is that how you treat all your customers, human?" he said in amusement.

 _Why here? Why now?_ She ignored him again, continuing to clean up as fast as she could – just so she could get away from the bar. But Jon came round that second.

"Petra is in, could you man the bar for me? I'll take the orders – and what was with that asari group? Did they just leave?" he said, sticking his stylus behind his ear.

"She was quite certain in her assumption that she wasn't coming back," said Laurel, still picking the glass out of the sink below her. "You hadn't made the drinks…"

"You also said you didn't 'give a shit' as I recall," replied the red turian friend again. Jon's face glowered for a brief second.

"The second we get a free moment, I need to have a serious chat with you," he hissed, before turning away.

She made sure she didn't meet eyes with Absedeus Marik the rest of the evening. They drank themselves silly so they didn't pay attention to her half the time, chatted up a few female turians, and promptly left.


	7. Chapter 7

It was another evening, and it was the end of the week. Marik decided he didn't like the cold emptiness of his apartment, and asked Vuren if he wanted to drink again. Vuren said he could possibly bear another night of serious drinking before calling it a day, or perhaps a week. They ended up in the exact same bar as the night before, much to Marik's protests.

"Cheaper than the Dark Star Lounge," Vuren had said. Marik begrudgingly went along, but in reality he was just waiting for the next drink.

"Another, human," said Vuren, pushing his glass hard enough that it glided across the surface of the bar. It was an hour later, and they had four drinks so far. She caught it in her hand angrily and put it into the dirty washing rack.

"Another what, _turian_?" she snapped. Her temper was being provoked.

"Talk to me like that again and I'll have to file in a complaint like those asari," warned Vuren. Marik realised he'd been studying her a little too closely. Her hands looked strange, as he watched her make the drinks. He'd seen human hands, but hers didn't look like all the others.

"I have a name, I'd appreciate it if you'd stop calling me 'human,'" she said now making a round of cocktails for a salarian/asari group after cleaning up. There was no reply from Vuren, and she took her time in making the drinks for the other group before returning to them. By the time she'd returned, Marik wanted another round.

"So what awful human music is playing now?" he suddenly asked her. She froze a little, before continuing.

"It's not human," she stated, unscrewing the lid of a large bottle and pouring it into the glass on the bar. She ignored him after that.

Five drinks later, Vuren made his goodbyes, and left, making excuses. Marik didn't blame him. Everyone knew he was prone to alcoholism – his greatest shame and the root of his 'polite' dismissal from the military. They gave him an advisor's job to the politicians and he hated them for it. Some bastard knew this, some bastard wanted to see him squirm in a distinctly un-military setting. Some lone salarian an hour later set near him at the bar and ordered something he'd never see before – something disgusting and large in a tall beaker. He began talking animatedly to the female bartender, who was trying her best to ignore everyone and everything.

"I've been studying human physiology for a while now. Fascinating. Genetically diverse," he said to the bartender.

She didn't say anything as she continued making a cocktail, shoving the citrus fruit onto the side of the glass with barely-concealed frustration. This intensely annoying salarian kept talking while she 'hmm-d' and 'uh-huhed' until he mentioned her fingers that were busy currently cutting up more citrus fruit.

"Those misaligned bones in your fingers. I can re-set them. Potentially problematic in human medicine, but not for a salarian. How long ago did it happen? Hm. Very interesting. In the past human medicine had to break malunionised bones in order to realign them. I can do so without…er…the painful re-breaking."

"Thanks but no thanks," she said to him. "I don't want to talk about it."

"It looks like they were broken under force. I can also advise that you-"

"You hear me, baldie? I don't want to talk about it," she snapped, and went to take the cocktails to a human/asari group.

Marik frowned into his drink. He'd see plenty of broken human bones in his time, ones that had broken under the strain of his own body. Their bone structure was too weak, as well as their skin. He never understood the evolutionary need for four fingers.

He had an odd feeling that he'd previously known her - that she'd been someone that he'd come across her in the 'war' as humans termed it. There was something too familiar about her voice and eyes. Humans looked all the same to him. But not this one.


	8. Chapter 8

Laurel woke up in the middle of the night – 4:13am said her clock – sweating and nearly crying.

Trailing to the kitchen in her apartment, she took a cold glass of water and watched the steady hum of skycars pass by her window at ridiculous speeds. She missed the sunlight of earth and the cool mornings of her home country, with the birds singing. But she couldn't face being back there; there were too many painful memories. She attempted to sleep again, but could only hear past words circle round her head. Enough was enough – she got up, showered, packed her satchel and moved to the transit cab rank. The apartment felt oppressive – kitchen, living room and bedroom all in one room, despite the large space. She arrived at the library five minutes later, which was open twenty-four hours during the week.

It overlooked the Presidium gardens, and she liked to take the space right at the top. She was trying to make something of her life by doing a correspondence course with the IOU – International Open University – partly funded by the Alliance, as a result of her serving with them. She might as well continue doing her essay, if but to rinse her mind of memories – of him. Thinking of that time only brought pain – it wasn't only the big fuckup of the mission or the torture she went through. It was her court-martialling, her dismissal from the Alliance….Not to mention she had no-one to support her as she went through it. Her family had cut her off years ago. Her friends had isolated her, believing her to be rightfully dismissed.

As she set up camp at one of the desk, taking out her portable terminal, she had felt surprised to see Captain Absedeus Marik drowning his sorrows in drink after drink for two nights in a row. How long until he would recognise her? The dark green colony markings on his face had faded slightly, and he had extensive scarring up the side of his neck and on his cowl. His dark plates looked worn and battle-scarred. But those yellowy eyes were still as piercing as they had been before. The way they bored into her, as if he could read her mind. The way he so patronisingly talked to her, as if she was mere dirt…. a puny human. She wished at that time she hadn't suffered from amnesia. She almost wished, if she had the courage, to go up to him now and tell him the truth.

 _Yes, I fucked up but I was betrayed. And the Alliance covered it all up like icing on a fucking cake._

Laurel worked until midday, realising her shift was due to start in an hour. Returning home, having showered and changed, she took another cab back to Mozarts, the name of the bar where she worked.

"This is your last warning, Laurel," Jon said to her as soon as she got in, tying an apron round her waist.

"I'd like it if you wouldn't speak to me like this when I'm starting," she snapped, shoving her worn handbag into her locker roughly.

"I don't have time to talk to you properly! Can you do that Sunday? I've got a new employee starting that day, but you need to show them the ropes. Also we have special guests night."

"Oh God," she moaned, hitting her head on the locker. "It's not Spirit Zero is it? Because they were awful." Jon's face crinkled.

"Don't start saying that round the asari. Seems like you don't really make friends with the aliens, do you?" Laurel twisted round to face him.

"And you do? Tell me Jon, do you relieve your teenage fantasies into that Consort?" His eyes nearly crossed in anger, and pointed his stylus close into her face.

"As I said, last warning, Laurel," he said, and stormed away.

She sniggered, as she clipped her unruly bushy hair out of her face and walked to the bar. As it was only two o' clock in the afternoon, customer crowds were light. A few families came in for the lunch meal deal, and a few old fogies for their four o' clock pint. She switched the age-old jukebox on, turning to one of her favourites. The shift seemed to go swimmingly well. She hadn't managed to piss off Jon for at _least_ four hours, she'd thought sarcastically. They used to get on, him acting like a caring parent. Maybe it was the music that made the shift seem to fly by. She almost felt calm under a false sense of security. By the time it reached six o'clock, Petra, the new young female turian employee had arrived and so had the customers. Petra hadn't much experience with bartending so Jon left it to Laurel who was content to man it. Until, at around nine o'clock, despite the bustling noise and crowds, Absedeus turned up asking for his usual – a turian whiskey. He didn't even look at her; obviously having grown to used to her and - _thank_ _Christ_ – not remembering her. He shoved his credit chit on the chrome surface, which she scanned and gave back to him without a backwards glance. He drunk himself into that same stupor, and left without a backwards glance. She hoped it wasn't going to turn into one of his frequent bars.


	9. Chapter 9

A week later.

He wasn't sure what had provoked him into a splurge of going to the bar each night, but he liked the way it cleared his mind, helped him sleep. The new bar was still not popular like the others, and he liked it that way. He didn't want old military ambassadors, politicians or advisors to see him this way. There was a sense of dignity that had to be kept, yet it was becoming more difficult with time. Vuren hadn't contacted him – the Major probably didn't gain much from his company. His apartment was cold, empty, and lonely.

He could only see comfort in a busy, loud setting, and at the bottom of his glass. He tried another bar on this particular evening – the Silver Coast Casino – which was a more refined setting, but by midnight only the seedy, the desperate and the lost were there. The drinks were not as good as that other human bar – the Moat-Zart? He couldn't remember the strange sounding human name. He tried his hand occasionally at gambling, but stopped himself after he'd lost over a thousand credits. He sat at the bar, quite sober at the point, chatting to the asari bartender, who was quite enjoying the undivided attention lavished on her.

"General Marik, yes I do remember that name," she smiled. "Your reputation precedes you." Absedeus wanted to grown into the shiny surface of the bar.

"Well, what's left of it anyway," he snapped.

The bartender, somewhat taken aback, quickly moved on to another customer. He drank himself into another stupor, until he was sure he'd forgotten the memories. For some reason, he'd been thinking of the Relay 314 Incident as of lately. He wasn't sure what provoked it, seeing as he'd blocked his mind from it for a long time. There was so use in thinking about the past – the past, which had been and gone. He hadn't been as sure however, as he felt the usual sober feelings come back to him as he wandered down the strip. He ended up walking for an hour. He wandered until found himself at the Moat-Zart. It was packed full, with live music playing. He tried to tell himself to leave it and go home. Absedeus felt himself moving forward anyway, into the crowded, noisy bar. People were drinking and swaying to the live music - some unbearable asari group. He seated himself at the bar, having pushed through the crwod of salarians, asari and turians roughly. He heard a few mumbles about how rude he was. There was no one at the bar. He lifted a hand up and shouted towards the nearest human he could see.

"Service!" he shouted, smacking his talon on the surface of the bar.

He had to raise his voice above the dreadful, whiny music. Absedeus did it once more before a human bartender walked over towards him. It was that blue-eyed waitress, her forehead knitted. Her rather bushy fringe was pinned back, revealing more of her face.

"Another Reynor?" she said, already getting out a glass.

She hadn't snapped at him this time, but her tone wasn't friendly either. He grunted at her, merely nodding. He pretended to be glaring at the asari band, but in fact he was taking furtive glances towards her. He wasn't as drunk as he'd been, thanks to the hour-long walk from the Silver Coast Casino. A terrible thought came to his mind. She looked one of those humans he'd interrogated during the Relay 314 Incident, one of very few. Her name didn't come to him, he'd only interrogated one female. He couldn't see her very well in the dark bar, which had been dimmed for the band. She slammed his glass down in front of him and tapped the automated till.

"Tab?" she said, not even looking at him.

"What is your name?" he asked her, looking at her straight in the eye. She froze for a moment, before collecting herself.

"Tab or not?" she snapped. At this point in time he was glad he was slightly sober.

"Tab," he replied.

She completed the procedure without saying anything else to him. Her clear hostility was unusual – he'd seen her be rude to her boss, the other customers, but it had been occasional. What could warrant such unsolicited hostility? He took a sip and then baulked at his thinking. She was a _human_. Her hostility had been born from fear, and rightly so.

Humans had plenty to fear from turians.


	10. Chapter 10

For some reason he was drawn to Mozarts because this human interested him.

He tried to quell any further thoughts he had because they would frequently remind him it was beneath him to pursue a human-run bar with a human bartender. Or that the memories associated with humans were not particularly pleasant. Absedeus entered the fairly quiet bar on a mid-week afternoon. He'd taken two weeks off from work spontaneously, which was unlike him. He took his usual seat, right at the end closest to the entrance. The bald human rounded the corner, stylus and notepad in his hand.

"Good afternoon. You are becoming an established regular with us," he said, smiling. Absedeus just scowled at him.

"Reynor," he grunted. The man, ever unfazed, smiled and nodded, tapping the till's screen.

"Of course sir, will you be needing a tab?" Absedeus was silent for a moment, glaring at the human male, named Jon, he'd heard.

"Answer a question for me," he said.

Jon was still faffing around on the till but he 'hmm-ed' in response. Absedeus wanted to pummel this human in particular for his snot-nosed self-importance. He reached into the inner pocket of his tunic and pulled out his credit chit.

"What is the name of your female bartender?" he asked. Jon looked incredulous, raising her eyebrows.

"Er – Laurel. Do you need to make a complaint?" he answered.

"Her surname?"

"Are you with C-Sec?" Jon asked. Absedeus nearly smirked.

"You could say so."

"Well I'll need some identification, I don't just hand out my employee's information to strangers like candy," said Jon, crossing his arms.

In response, Absedeus's face grew dark and pushed his credit chit across the bar surface towards the bartender. He sat there eating and drinking, wondering if this Laurel would show up. Why had his memory tempted him with knowledge, potentially disturbing knowledge, about an insignificant human, but not give him the whole thing? At about seven in the evening, she showed up, her shoulders sagging when she caught sight of him. She busied herself long enough so she wouldn't have to interact with him, but he shouted across to her several times.

She didn't ask him what he wanted, made the Reynor and walked over towards him, putting the glass in front of him without a single glance. The bar was a lot busier now and grew more crowded in the evening. He was glad that no one he knew had frequented this bar as often as he did. He tried to disguise the fact he was drinking, although it was always so obvious. When she happened to walk by him, after previously being reprimanded by the manager Jon, she scooped up his plate and glass as quickly as she could.

"Laurel," he said.

She halted, her pupils had dilated as she looked at him. They stared at each other for what seemed like an eternity. He saw the matured years in her face, lines of worry and stress already etched into her forehead. She didn't look as if she knew what to do, or to say. Perhaps he was wrong, for she turned away. His taloned hand shot out, grabbing her by the wrist and pulling her back towards him. His reaction seemed to shock her, so she didn't resist at first. With an almost tender touch, he spread out the fingers on her hand. The skin on her hands was rough. Her long fingers were slightly twisted and clawed. That nosy salarian had been right; these fingers had been broken by force.

"If you don't let go this instant, I will call security," she warned, trying to twist her ugly hand out of his own.

But he suddenly gripped it tightly, enough that her skin would probably bruise later. Her breath hitched.

"What is your surname?" he persisted. To everyone else, they looked like a flirting couple, drawn together. She stopped struggling and gaped at him in shock.

"You don't remember me?" she said in disbelief, her eyebrows drawn to form a frown.

"I forget insignificant humans easily," he snapped back. She wrenched her hand out of his as hard as she could, with a ferocity that nearly surprised him.

"How do you know my first name?" she said to him, still in a stupor. He swallowed, trying not to show his slight embarrassment, for he enquired after her, a _human_.

"If you touch me again I will alert the authorities," she hissed into his face. She drew away before he could say anything else to her, disappearing into the crowd.


	11. Chapter 11

He realised that she'd quit the job when he went back to _Mozarts_ several times.

He had an inkling she was one of the prisoners during the incident, but he couldn't place who and what she'd done. Over the next week, her face and hands plagued his mind constantly, both in reality and in dreams. He tried to return to work, maintaining his disciplined, reserved persona. He didn't see Vuren, but then again he didn't care much. Absedeus liked his solitary life, although he realised there was something missing from it. He sometimes wished that he'd died valiantly in battle – the civilian life was not for him. Not when he'd spent so much of his time out in the field. The search for the human almost gave him some purpose; take his mind off the next drink awaiting him. Absedeus returned to Mozarts one evening, seeing the bald human male Jon at the fairly quiet bar. Jon saw him instantly and began to make his drink.

"No," Absedeus interrupted, holding up his taloned hand. "Not tonight." He didn't take a seat.

"Well that's a first," joked Jon, pouring the alcohol back into its container.

"Laurel doesn't work here any more, does she?" said Absedeus suddenly, after a brief silence. Jon kept quiet for a few minutes more before he turned to look at the turian.

"Why do want to know?"

"Why are you so _damn_ secretive?" snapped Absedeus. Jon sighed, screwing the top back onto the bottle.

"I can tell that you must've known each other from… _somewhere_ ," he said. "I was sorry to see her go. She was not the best employee, however."

"That's _why_ I want to know," said Absedeus, his mandibles clenching together in irritation. "I think I knew her from the…Incident."

"The First Contact War? So you don't remember, then? Because I think she remembers you. I'm not giving you any information if you're going to hurt her, buddy."

Absedeus lost his temper, grabbed the front of Jon's shirt and pulled him close into his face. It was the 'buddy' that did it, he thought.

"If you won't give me her surname maybe I can hire a private detective who'd beat the shit out of you to tell me?" he hissed.

"Tell me you won't hurt her, Marik," replied Jon. "I know who you are. Most people do. They know you're a drunk, lonely old turian who's prone to fits of anger." Absedeus shoved Jon backwards in frustration.

"You fucked her at some point? That's why you care so much about protecting her ass?" he snapped. Jon looked at Absedeus with, for the first time since he'd met him, pure contempt.

"She is like a daughter to me. I'd never had any of my own. Her own parents disowned her years ago. We've worked together for a long time. Now sod off. Get out of my bar, and don't ever come back."

Absedeus had no problem in turning back round and walking away from the bar.

With the surname, he could've easily remembered. Or would he? He couldn't strain his memory any further.

He decided quickly that his search would promptly end there. He was tired of this human bar anyway.


	12. Chapter 12

**One Year Later**

The batarian with eyes unblinking leaned against the railings in the thick, smoky area that was the Omega space station.

He stood outside the Afterlife club, listening to the faint sounds of booming music. The air was spicy but stiff with heat, and he looked towards the various buildings that rose out of the asteroid's rock. She was taking her time, he thought, lighting up a cigarette. He puffed the smoke out into the red-amber light, looking down onto the run-down tenements below. Skycars whizzed by, but they were eerily silent. She was never on time, but that sort of thing was to be expected. She was a human, after all. If she showed up another fifteen minutes late, he considered getting El-Than and his gang to beat the living daylights out of her. But he stopped himself, blowing out more smoke through his slitted nostrils; she gave him what he wanted. He turned round when he heard footsteps. The human female, Laurel, was suddenly stood there with his goods. She was unremarkable looking for a human, with shoulder-length bushy brown hair and dressed in a tattered leather jacket.

"You're late, again," he sad, tossing his cigarette into the unknown depths below. "You forget I'm a fucking paying customer."

She snorted at him as she drew out the bag of what he craved most.

"No way to talk to a lady, Oltan. Want it or not?" she said.

"Vallex?" he stated, snatching the bag from her fingers and inspecting it with the pads of his fingers. "The last one was shit, by the way."

"I don't _make_ it, asshole. I just deliver it. Rarm as well, for an extra fifty?" All four of his black eyes as she brought out another plastic pouch - this time it was pure, white powderous glory.

"Thirty," he said. "I'm already giving you sixty for the vallex."

"I'm not bartering with you, it's either fifty or nothing," she snapped back.

Oltan was still not used to the human presence and like everyone else found them a thorn in the galaxy's side. They were young, aggressive, ambitious and immensely adaptable: whether that was a good thing or not he'd have to decide later. He was more tolerant than most of his society, but then maybe that was why he'd exiled himself to this particular dark corner of the Terminus Systems. He didn't like this human and abruptly grabbed her arm, attempting to twist it and push her to the ground. To his astonishment she responded incredibly well – he assumed she was just another prostitute or stripper, caught up in a life of drugs. She slammed him into the ground with incredible force, completely winding him.

"Oops. Chipped a nail," she said above him, digging the heel of her boot into his back, between his shoulders. He groaned in agony from the pressure exerted from her shoe.

"Ungh," he moaned.

"Is it sixty or not, Oltan? You try a move like that on me again and I'll cut your goddamn balls off."

Well, this human simply knew how to play. He tried to contain his anger and humiliation from being overpowered by a human. No one around them took any notice.

"Sixty," he grunted. "Leave the…"

"Fucking thought so," she snapped at him, turning him over with her boot and giving him a hard kick.

His ribs felt like they'd been kicked in, and he nearly let loose with a howl of agony. He brought up his omni-tool, tapping it weakly. She held hers up and saw a small light beeped. She smirked in satisfaction, making him want to claw her face off as he lay there like a total idiot. She threw his packet of vallex onto his face, hard enough that is bounced off and onto the ground.

"Enjoy," she said, and turned round to walk off. Oltan immediately sat up, grabbing his bag quickly and standing up. He'd get that _bitch_. No human, no _female_ even, treated him like that.


	13. Chapter 13

She hoisted her tiny drawstring bag up onto her shoulder.

The streets were damp and dark, probably from the water-sewerage system that was not far away. Steam was vented from the back of buildings as Laurel Westfahl crossed through another shortcut that she felt to be reliable. She tried to ignore the look of the homeless batarians and vorcha on the floor, or by makeshift fires tucked in a sinister corner. Meeting eyes would certainly lead to a fight of some kind and she hadn't the energy, not after today. It was becoming taxing to have to defend herself physically each and every day after a ten-hour shift. Half the time she felt like she was working night shifts, as Omega did not have light and organised schedules like the Citadel. It was, all in all, a bloody nightmare.

The only thing the Omega did have was the 2600-hour clock, which required at least two hours extra work from her. She returned five nights a week, usually after having being coerced into either fighting or defending herself. That was one good thing the Alliance had given her – extensive physical combat and weapon handling. She wasn't sure how she coped but the long shifts, the weekends spent selling drugs and then consuming drugs helped take her mind off the dark corners that it liked to visit very often.

When the drugs made her unable to work, she was sacked almost immediately and she had to force herself to quit and start again. Now she just sold the drugs. Laurel pulled out her apartment's card key after fiddling in the bottomless pit that was her bag. Her apartment, devoid of windows (apartments with windows were more expensive) was simply furnished with its joint living area and kitchen. One tiny bedroom, with an uncomfortable bed. She peeled her jumper and work dungarees off, wandering to the bathroom just in a camisole and pants.

Splashing water on her face she looked at her thin, ashy face. When had she become so ugly? Her life had been a disaster so far: a rebellious adolescence, not helped with stiff, aloof parents and a military career cut disastrously short. No friends, no partners for years now, and she had lost contact with Jon since she left the Citadel. She was merely existing and not living, but she couldn't bear to live, not as herself. But somehow, the will to solider on was there, although she had no idea why. Laurel ran a bath and sat in the hot water. She cried until there were no tears left. When she'd finished heaving and sobbing, sitting there in the now cool water feeling sorry for herself, she caught sight of a packet of red sand on the nearby sink.

"Why the hell am I still on this shitty station?" she murmured.

She hadn't cried like that for many years and it surprised her. A small weight had been lifted from her shoulders, but she still carried the heavy burden. It wasn't like she was able to catch a flight off-station, not at the prices they were charging. To return to Earth or the Citadel? She found it easier adapting to a space station than a colony – there was something too off-putting for her about living on another planet. Too alien. Whatever it was, she knew she took herself with her wherever she went.

That was, indeed, the problem.

* * *

Notes:

Hello fellow fanfic readers. Thank you for the faves, follows and that you're continuing to read. **Duererfan** I'm glad you're addicted - thanks for the reviews! Enjoy these chapters :D

If there was a soundtrack to this story, 'The Drugs Don't Work' by The Verve would be the song for this chapter. 'Love and War' by Rilo Kiley is perfect for the whole story in general (my favourite band ever, btw).

*The drugs vallex and rarm mentioned are made-up (by me) and not featured in the ME universe. Red sand is immune to batarians as I found out on the ME wiki. Many other drugs also mentioned there are not particularly 'suitable' in this setting.


	14. Chapter 14

"Why do you bother yourself with this petty human, Oltan?" said Kelk-Yan, a friend of Oltan's, leaning against the wall near where the human female's apartment resided.

"What? I'm surprised, Kelk. Usually _you_ jump at the chance to pummel humans into the ground," Oltan replied, taking a drag of another cigarette. Kelk-Yan shrugged as he turned his gaze back to the apartment's door.

"If anything you should've just taken the rarm. I haven't had that stuff in years."

"You think I'm a walking fucking bank? She already charged me a stupid amount for vallex. That stuff should be damn cheap, it's Omega!" snapped Oltan, the smoke drifting out of his slits for nostrils furiously.

"You've got an expensive habit, my friend," Kelk-Yan chuckled. His eyes still hadn't moved from the doors.

"Yeah, well, my source of income was…"

"Terminated, yeah I know," said Kelk-Yan.

Oltan's long source of income happened to be a mercenary who was killed by a rival gang only the other week. Oltan chucked his cigarette away.

"Watch it, dickhead," snapped an asari who walked by with a turian. The cigarette butt had nearly singed the fabric of her pants.

"I hate these aliens," muttered Oltan.

"This human female you're so willing to get revenge on has just exited her apartment," informed Kelk-Yan.

"I need that rarm," said Oltan, walking quickly towards an average-sized female, carrying a large duffel bag. Oltan pulled out a sidearm that Kelk-Yan hadn't previously noticed and held it up right towards her forehead. Her eyes registered surprised, but she didn't put her hands up. Perhaps this human was no ordinary citizen – after all why would she be on Omega? No one came here to raise a family and put up their white picket fences. She cocked her head at Oltan questioningly.

"And what happens if I've sold it already?" she said, her tone quite innocent.

Unlike a lot of humans, she held her gaze very firmly on the first set of Oltan's eyes. He aggressively pushed the barrel of the pistol further towards her, making her flinch only a centimetre.

"I'm not going to just stand here and give it to you, you cocksucker," she said through gritted teeth. Oltan nearly baulked at her ferocity. Kelk-Yan knew this was going to become rather ugly soon. Oltan as a warning, shot the gun off to her right.

"Second one I might just accidentally hit your kneecap," he said. She laughed at him.

"You got your vallex, Oltan, why so desperate for rarm? Or is it because you're salty over me kicking your ass?"

"That's it, I warned you," he suddenly shouted, going to point the pistol at her knee, but Kelk-Yan pounced forward, grabbing Oltan's arm.

"What the hell are you doing!?" Oltan yelled in response as he backed off away from the human.

"Let's make a deal," said Kelk-Yan quickly. "I see you're a human not to be trifled with." The human raised her eyebrows, folding her arms in response. Oltan was breathing heavily beside him.

"Tell me what you want, human. Looks like you're going somewhere far? Off-station?" Kelk-Yan said. He always had the gift of the gab, something he'd always admired himself for. He wouldn't be surprised if she was looking for a ride elsewhere, anywhere was better than this hellhole, especially for humans.

"What makes you think I'm inclined to tell you?" she replied.

"I know a free ride. Bunch of mercs, but a couple of them are human," began Kelk-Yan. Oltan inwardly groaned: why was he helping this bitch?

"I'm not at ease with humans any more than a vorcha," she retorted. Oltan snorted at her in response - his sentiments exactly. Kelk-Yan pulled his lipless mouth into something that resembled a smile.

"Keep saying things like that and maybe we'll come to like you," he said. "If you find use enough vallex to dust us into the next solar system, I can find a way to get you on that ship." The human female seemed to consider him for a small moment, letting the duffel bag drop from her hand that had previously been hoisted onto her shoulder.

"What's this merc group?" she asked, her eyes narrowing.

"Blue Suns," replied Kelk-Yan.

"Never heard of them," she said.

"And you won't have to ever again when they've dropped you off," said Kelk-Yan.

"Destination?" she tried.

"Illium, but they can make an exception for you," said Kelk-Yan. "They are good friends of mine."

"Would they really want to waste their time dropping me off somewhere? Illium isn't exactly in immediate relay-jumping distance." Kelk-Yan had to give her credit for all these cautious questions, but he was more than done talking with her.

"Why don't you meet them at Afterlife in a couple of hours, with us and find out," he said, smiling again. "Perhaps you can impress enough to convince them."

"What act like I'm another one of the fucking stripper gang?"

Kelk-Yan merely looked at her in puzzlement. Oltan stepped in this time.

"He means don't insult them like you're insulting us," he snapped. "And think about ditching your poor taste in clothing." She was quiet in thought for a few minutes.

"How much do you want? Of the vallex and rarm?" she finally asked.

"You didn't hear me, whatever your name is?" said Kelk-Yan, his tone less than friendly now. "Enough to dust us into another system." She considered that for a little while before nodding, fury etched on her white face, and turned away.

They watched her until she disappeared.


	15. Chapter 15

Nervousness ran through each vein of her body as Laurel left her apartment for the final time, heading towards Afterlife. Thankfully she didn't live far from it, and the walk took her five minutes. Her palms felt clammy and her heart began to beat harder, like a hammer on cloth. She didn't take heed of the batarians 'fashion' advice, other than she chose a more appealing camisole underneath a much lighter jacket. If they thought she was going to stroll in an alien nightclub in a G-string and fuck-all else, they had another thing coming. She tried to tame her wild bushy hair to no avail and eventually left it. As she headed towards Afterlife, she could see Oltan and his friend stood outside as promised. Oltan was smoking a cigarette as usual. As she climbed the steps past the long queue of club-goers, Oltan's friend Kelk-Yan walked over to her.

"I almost thought you wouldn't show up, human," he said, giving her a once-over, which made her grimace. She was not looking forward going into this club.

"Let's get this over with," was all she said. She made sure she had loaded herself up beforehand: two daggers sheathed stealthily in her cargo pants, and two sidearms in the inside pockets of her light black jacket. Oltan didn't say anything, and just glared at her, his arms crossed. She moved to go on in, but Kelk-Yan held his hand up.

"We're not going in until you give us the drugs," he said, his tone unfriendly once more.

"How do I know you'll keep your word, batarian?" she snapped. "It's unlikely I'm gong to trust you at this point." She knew the vallex was easy to get hold of, but the rarm not so much. She pulled out one of the packets of vallex and threw it into Oltan's face as hard as she could.

"I'll give you your vallex," she said. "But you're not getting the rarm until I'm certain you'll keep your word."

She was tempted not to give them the rarm. She was tempted to shoot them both in the head, along with the scum that was the Blue Suns. Hell, she'd nuke this entire station to hell and back. Kelk-Yan regarded her for a short moment, before nodding and waving her on in first. Laurel didn't wait around, and went straight in after Kelk-Yan had flashed some member's pass at the bouncer. Laurel could hear Oltan muttering in disagreement behind her, but she ignored him as they entered the main bar area. She hadn't been in here before, but she wasn't very surprised or flattered by its interior: the usual dancers, the usual music, the bartenders and seedy customers. It was difficult to see in the dingy, orangey-red light, lit up by the huge neon cylinder in the middle of the large room. She turned to the batarians behind her for guidance, and Kelk-Yan pointed to a booth at the back of the room. They passed several asari and turians who were sat up at the bar, some who turned round to stare at her. Humans still weren't exactly popular, even after ten years. Especially on Omega. Soon enough they approached the table, occupied by a batarian, two humans and a turian. Two of the humans were men, one who was scruffy looking and tiredly smoking a cigar.

"Bought time you showed up," he grunted. "Is this the cargo?"

"As promised," Kelk-Yan replied, smiling horridly with his lipless mouth. She was getting tired of this entire bullshit charade already.

"If you're talking about me, you can fucking FORGET IT," she said, and whipped out her sidearm, pointing it straight at the scruffy man's head. Everyone moved at once. She had about a dozen guns pointed in her direction, one that included in the side of her head.

"Careful, human, you don't know who you're dealing with," said one of the other batarians. She heard them muttering amongst each other, and only caught the name 'Aria.' Oh yes, she was not as stupid as they thought.

"You brought a mouthy human female with weapons, Kelk?" laughed the other human guy. "Did you tell her to leave her toys at home?"

Her blood boiled. She brought out the packet of rarm suddenly, and blew the packet to smithereens right in front of them. Several people in the club screamed. The residue powder, like snow, sprinkled to the ground.

"Still think I'm just a pretty face?" she said to them. She then heard Oltan's sudden cry of outrage. The first man who spoke, who had put out his cigar, lowered his pistol, looking at her inquisitively.

"Maybe I'll let you live and board with us if you take off that jacket and show us what else you've got stashed in there," he said, signalling to the rest of his crew to lower their weapons. Oh, she was only too happy to oblige, although her heart pounded so hard she felt like it was pressing against the sides of her throat.

"What are you talking about? We had a deal," snapped Oltan, standing forward and pointing his finger in the scruffy man's direction. The scruffy man ignored him as he scrutinised Laurel taking off her jacket. She had tonnes of it, and she didn't explain where she got it. She threw various sachets and packets all down onto the table in front of them roughly.

"Excellent," smiled the scruffy man. The turian, whom she hadn't noticed until this point, leaned in towards him.

"This is _not_ a good idea," he hissed. She watched this turian lean into the scruffy man, whose face remained unfazed and waved him away. The turian, who dwarfed all the others, had greenish washed out colony markings, barely visible against his dark plates. The ball dropped. For a second she thought he was not who she thought he was. But he was. _Marik_. The galaxy clearly wasn't big enough for the both of them. She didn't have time to properly process this for another turian walked over towards them.

"No firing of firearms, you know the rule Hobb!" The scruffy man who was named Hobb only regarded the turian with a plain look.

"Don't get your fucking turian panties in a twist, we'll be outta here soon enough," he replied. The turian bouncer's mandibles clenched together, narrowing his eyes.

"You don't want to be pissing off the boss today," was all he said. Hobb drew up his gun, and fired two shots into Oltan and Kelk-Yan's, whose bodies then fell lifelessly to the floor. More screams erupted round the club and the turian bouncer span round with a 'what the fuck!' Hobb drew out a wad of credits, hard currency that was not often seen, and threw it onto the table.

"Sorry about the mess," he said. Before they could move, a striking asari, levitated by her sphere of biotic power moved down in front of them suddenly, blocking their exit. The smug look on Hobb's face vanished within an instant.

"Aria!" exclaimed the Blue Suns batarian.

"Surprised I'm here, Mire?" Aria T'Loak addressed the batarian, turning her attention to Hobbs. "Any idea why the fuck you're having a shootout in _my_ club? Why are there two dead batarians on the floor?" Her eyes drifted down to the various packets of vallex on the table in front of them.

"This is your last warning Hobbs," spoke Aria. Laurel was fully aware who she was, having lived on Omega for the last seven months. You didn't piss her off and that was all she had needed to know. Aria drew out a heavy pistol and shot Hobbs just below the knee. He screamed in pain.

"Oh _fuck_! What the fucking Jesus-"

"You try and start another fight in my club again I'll blow your damn head off. You're more trouble than you're worth," she said, holstering her weapon. "Grizz! Clean this mess up." The batarian next to Hobbs put a shoulder under him, hauling him as he keened and wailed.

"She shot me in the goddamn knee! Argh, fuck!" Aria hadn't moved away yet, suddenly staring at Laurel, a little to closely.

"You're trying to sell some of my best mercs vallex just when they're about to complete a job for me? I don't want them high and shooting fucking patterns into the wall next to the guy I want dead," she challenged Laurel, although this time her voice wasn't nearly as threatening. Laurel felt it was best at this point to keep a hold on her tongue. Her eyes met Aria's.

"Aria, it wasn't the deal," began the Blue Suns turian. _Him_ , the back of her mind said in a small voice.

"I know, Marik, you washed-out coot," she said, waving her hand at him. "Just wanted to see this little one _squirm_ for a bit." Laurel didn't even flinch as Aria examined her like a textbook, looking her up and down.

"Could do with a gal in the club, not nearly enough of them," she said. Laurel's heart began to sink slightly, knowing she meant the Blue Suns.

"Think you could take Hobbs place?" Aria finished. Laurel could feel Marik's gaze burn into her.

"What's the catch?" she said. Aria suddenly laughed.

"Oh so she _does_ talk!" she said. "No catch, and its not like you have a choice, sweetie. Your involvement means Hobbs is now an invalid…he couldn't shoot for shit anyway…You'll take his place, providing you can hold a gun. Complete my mission and I'll give you what you want." Laurel folded her arms.

"What mission? And how do you know what _I_ want?" Aria leaned in closer. She was a little bit too close for comfort now, and she lifted her long-fingered hand to touch the bushy mane that was Laurel's hair.

"Oh I don't know…I can see you _want_ to leave Omega, but something compels you to stay. I can see you're lonely…"

"It's a hellhole," Laurel replied.

"Honey your hair is a hellhole," said Aria, twanging a particularly curly strand. "You can take Hobbs' paycheck…He won't be needing it." Laurel bit her lip in contemplation as she heard Hobbs continually curse and weep. What had she got herself into?

"What's the mission?" she asked finally. Aria laughed at her again.

" _Mission_? What, you used to be part of that human Alliance? It's a damn job. A scumbag stole from me and ran away to Illium. I want it back, and him dead. Don't care how you do it. They've got a large corporate, criminal empire based there-"

"And you're sending in _four_ mercs?" interrupted Laurel.

"You think I'm stupid enough to piss off a massive criminal empire with infinite reach? No I just want that one bastard dead and my fucking credits back. All five hundred million of them," finished Aria.

 _It's not like I have a choice_ , Laurel said to herself. But the thought of accompanying a mercenary group on a potentially risky mission was not one she welcomed with open arms. Especially one that involved a turian general who had her tortured during the First Contact War. Would she have the pleasure of telling him what really happened ten years ago during this oh-so-wonderful trip? She didn't know. All that she did know was when they turned away and walked out of the club to the docks, she was shit scared.


	16. Chapter 16

They boarded a small frigate which had been extensively modified. It definitely wasn't human in design, and Laurel suspected batarian. The other human whose name was Banks still dragged Hobbs along anyway, who moaned and groaned the entire way down. In her duffel bag she had the entirety of her possessions, refusing a trip back to her apartment to collect anything else. She had already paid the last of her expensive rent and someone else had already moved in. She wasn't going to miss it.

"What's the point of bringing him?" hissed Marik who walked ahead of them all, turning briefly to stare at Hobbs.

He hadn't made eye contact with her, but if he hadn't remembered her before, he certainly wouldn't now. From some celebrated general to an alcoholic? Now a mercenary working for a crime boss on a seedy space station? It was near unbelievable and she briefly wondered if she had the wrong turian. He'd been so disciplined and straight-laced. He even outshone her old sergeant - the Alliance sergeant who trained her when a rookie, had been a restrained toff who had a metal rod stuck so far up his ass he couldn't walk straight. She nearly paled at this comparison; why was she joking about it _now_?

"You need a doctor," said Laurel flatly, who was near Hobbs. He snorted at her through his pain.

"I ain't going to a doctor, lady," he spat. "I've medi-gelled it."

The batarian who trailed behind them, was standoffish and quiet like most batarians. Unlike Kelk-Yan, she thought, he was an exception. Inside the frigate was cramped and dark, with wires hanging from the ceiling. Nothing like the clean, streamlined interiors of Alliance frigates.

"What a dump," she muttered, nearly tripping over a crate full of weapon parts as they moved through the airlock into the ship.

Yellow lights bleeped on some large inbuilt computer as they entered the large area behind the cockpit. It looked like it was the mess hall as well as the navigation centre, with a table in the middle. She saw plates, cups and saucepans strewn around everywhere.

"Ooh, careful there," said Banks, bending his head slightly as he struggled to drag Hobbs over to one of the chairs by the table. "Don't let Mire catch you talking shit about batarian frigates."

"I couldn't give a damn what he thinks," said Laurel, kicking a crate out of her way. It span across the floor, wires and other pieces of junk spilling out of it.

"It may not look like much, but Aria has kitted it out with the latest technology. Not the technology your beloved human Alliance can get their ugly fingers on," said Mire from behind, nearly making her jump with his sudden closeness.

Laurel span back round and met his black eyes. She saw Marik close the airlock behind them, having to bend down significantly due to his extreme height. She didn't say anything as she continued to meet Mire's eyes.

"If we're going to complete the job, we need to get along," said Marik behind them, his deep voice rumbling.

She supressed a shudder, turning away from Mire to seat herself at the table. Mire did the same, although he made sure he was sat far from her on the other end. Marik approached Laurel as she sat there, towering over her. She didn't look at him, suddenly feeling uncomfortable. It felt as exactly as she remembered. An alien presence, intense fear, unknown surroundings. And him towering over her like she was an ant.

"That means not provoking your temporary squad while you're on that job," he said to her.

There was clear antagonism in his voice, but that didn't surprise her. She knew he hated humans as much as anyone else. She still didn't meet his eyes as he stood there, who eventually turned away to sit down at the table.

"Hobbs, you have the data?" said Banks.

Hobbs chucked some computer chip onto the table, which Banks grabbed and inserted it onto a portable terminal, looking like it connected to the table. A blue 3D image of a building appeared in front of them, hovering above the table.

"We have the name of the bloke who has the five hundred million," said Banks. "His name is Scott. Human, caucasian, male. He's some top dog in this corporation." Using a stylus, Banks pressed it onto the terminal, which brought up what looked like extranet information.

"Oprikar, Inc? I've heard of that name," said Laurel, sitting up as she strained her eyes to read the information.

"Big family business. Alongside covert criminal activities it mainly deals in weapon parts for all kinds of vessels, don't matter what kind. Some of it is illegally tested and dangerous. Sells to criminals, guerrilla groups, mercenaries, corrupt military officials and politicians…"

"Assholes, then?" finished Laurel.

"Do we know what he looks like?" said Marik.

"No," said Banks. "There's little information on him, it seems he's kept his tracks well hidden. All we know he's ex-Alliance military."

"You might have something in common," suddenly said the batarian Mire to Laurel.

"What makes you think I'm with the Alliance?" she snapped.

"It's the way you carry yourself," said Marik suddenly. "You have the pose of a soldier."

She tried not to prickle at this, but her palms were sweaty. She suddenly could feel beads of perspiration on her temples and upper lip. Why oh why am I here?

"What skills do you have…whatever your name is?" said Banks. There was a brief silence.

"Other than in bed, he means," said Hobbs, his face muffled by his arms as he slouched on the table. It took all the strength and poise she had not to catapult herself at him and shoot his other knee. _What a jerk-off._

"I can hold a gun and shoot," she said.

"Anything else?" said Banks tiredly.

"Even if I was with the Alliance, what does it matter now? I sold drugs and lived on Omega."

"The great shining example of humanity," sneered Mire.

"If I could put a fucking bullet in your brain right now I would," she said to him through gritted teeth.

"The feeling's mutual," he replied.

"Enough!" shouted Marik, nearly making her jolt out of her chair. Her heart was thundering from his sudden movement. They all fell silent for a moment, save for the muffled grumbling and groaning of Hobbs.

"Aria didn't give us a plan," continued Banks. "She just said kill him and find her the money. All I know is that he holds some high-stakes quasar event at his casino this time of the year, according to an inside source. Scott usually likes to challenge his enemies. And he usually wins."

"What inside source?" asked Laurel.

"An asari who works at the casino. Not a member of the Blue Suns, but works part-time as intelligence for Aria," said Banks. "The event is probably the most inconspicuous way to try and find Scott and where he's kept the money and kill him, without getting their attention." He drew up a 3D map of the casino, zooming in on it with his stylus.

"Place is heavily guarded, which according to the asari Dellria, works in Scott's favour. We should hear more from her when we get there, she's agreed to meet at a bar, Eternity, before we find Scott."

"And then what?" Laurel snapped. Banks looked like he was going to loose his patience with her.

"This isn't a normal Blue Suns kind of operation, human," said Marik in reply. She ignored him as she felt his eyes burn through her.

"Dellria gave the impression when I last spoke to her that she had more information, but couldn't do it over the comm. She has to meet us in private," finished Hank. Laurel sat back in her chair, having run out of questions. How complicated was this going to be? It made her feel nervous, especially now that Marik was here. She had time to contemplate now that it was quiet.

"ETA for Crescent Nebula is seven hours after we relay into the system," said Mire, more to Marik and Banks than her. He stood up and walked over to the cockpit. She guessed he was the pilot, seeing as it was a batarian ship. Banks stood up, tapping Hobbs roughly on the shoulder, who groaned in response.

"C'mon, let's get you to the med room," he said. They began to move. She couldn't bear being left with Marik. She'd find the darkest, quietest spot on the ship and hide there.


	17. Chapter 17

"Owww! Jesus! Can't you be a little more careful?" snapped Hobbs as Banks did his best to patch up the gunshot wound.

"I'm not a medic," snapped Banks. "There's shattered bone. You're gonna have to see someone when we get to Nos Astra. Get rid of your goddamn stuck-up pride before you do it."

He peeled his bloody latex gloves off and shoved them in the bin. He then peered his head round to look at Mire in the cockpit.

"How long now, ugly?" he called over.

"Sixty minutes," came the reply.

They planned to dock at one of Nos Astra's many ports, at the one closest to the bar Eternity, which happened to be near the Nos Astra exchange. Meanwhile Laurel bided her time in the extremely cramped engineering space. It was nothing like she'd seen before, looking more like a human diesel engine from the twentieth century. She'd take care not to tell the batarian that – who looked like he wanted to pummel her into the ground most of the time. The engines were noisy, dank and the place stank to high heaven of oil. Laurel managed to find a dry spot on the cool metal floor, but she had to muffle her ears with ear defenders as she got down there. It was also incredibly dark, and she could imagine murders had taken place here. However, it was much preferable to being up there with the three of them. She had made a small comfy space, sleeping on her jacket as she draped one of her thicker hoodies over her body as a blanket. Her sleep was stunted by eerie dreams, more than likely being the result of sleeping in an alien engine room. An hour before they arrived she ended up pouring through her duffel bag, making sure she had everything. Her weapons were already sheathed and holstered: two daggers and two pistols.

She had reloaded the pistols several times, poking at them. Four sets of clothes, which she had bundled up into a tight ball. A datapad, worth more than it actually looked, due to its content. A curiously old-fashioned faded photograph, edged by an unadorned silver frame. The picture was of a bird of prey, an osprey. She heard a door close, knowing it was the door to the engine room. She shoved everything into her bag at the speed of light, spinning round to see Marik walk down the metal stairs into the engine room. Laurel grabbed her bag and drew it round her body, underneath one of her arms. She didn't tell them that she had a compactable shotgun strapped to her thigh, disguised by her combat pants. They were baggy and had large pockets, which covered the large bulk on the front of her thigh. Being Blue Suns she thought they wouldn't have cared about the weapons on her. However it seemed they _did_ , although they hadn't gone to great lengths such as patting her down. She should've known it would be him that would come down to check up on her. He had that uncanny habit of watching her like a hawk - although if she was honest with herself, turian features had the look of predatory hawks _anyway_. But it didn't make her feel any more comfortable.

"Is there any reason why you have decided to set up camp here, human?" he began loudly, looking round at the oily surface of the engine room. She had her back to him, resting a foot on a pipe while doing her laces up.

"None'a your business," Laurel shouted back to him.

She could feel him her approaching her, and the hairs on the back of her neck stood up. Promptly finishing her other boot, she turned round to meet him in the eye, drawing her sharp breath in through her nostrils. She'd forgotten how _tall_ he was – turians were tall of course, but he was ridiculous. His piercing yellow eyes, sharp and cold – at at least to her – assessed her with his talons behind his back. Even if his oh-so wonderful status had been rescinded, he still stood nauseatingly straight like a solider. She'd seen a few turians slump in their height, but he looked as if he walked with a metal rod up his backside.

"Whatever you do, human, is my business. You're on our ship, you're doing our job, working for our boss. You're accompanying me on this job. Hobbs is injured, Banks and Mire decided it would look too conspicuous if we all turn up unannounced at this high-stakes quasar event," he announced. He must've seen her face crease up instantly because he then interrupted her.

"I don't like it any more than you do, in fact the thought of it is making me feel positively nauseous," he said.

"Well I'm sure the bar will quench your anxious _needs_ ," she bit back, not really thinking. He seemed to stop during his train of thought, the large mandibles on his face tightening.

"What are you _implying_ , human?" he snapped.

She tried not to flinch at the sound of that voice – an all too familiar voice. Do not provoke him, a voice said at the back of her mind. It was the only reasonable voice she had and it had been fading fast over the years. Yet the unreasonable part of her wanted revenge, even though it was a daring, ludicrous idea. If they were ever to physically fight the likeliest outcome would be his victory, if only due to his considerably large physique. She had to remember that he hadn't been the one to torture her for information, having used lesser soldiers to do his dirty work. Somehow this sliver of knowledge was unwelcome to her and felt much worse.

"Stop calling me 'human'," she said. "Not considered polite when we're in good company." His face contorted a little more, but he shifted his feet and turned back to the stairs.

"You forget humans are not as common in the Terminus Systems. What do you _want_ to be called, then?"

"I don't want you to call me anything," she snapped, trailing after him. "I presume you came down here to 'fetch' me?" She watched his unusual legs bend as he climbed the stairs and his three-fingered taloned hands clutch the banister. She supressed a shiver.

"We will be arriving in twenty-five minutes," he said, not turning back round to face her.

When she arrived at the navigation room again, Banks was packing a large bag on the mess table. Hobbs was asleep in the corner of the room on the couch, his leg propped up. Mire was still in the cockpit, but through the window she could see many skyscrapers against a violet sky backdrop. She watched them gather their weapons together. They were taking far too much in her opinion, but only Marik stuck to an assault rifle and a heavy pistol.

"A fucking grenade launcher?" she said when she caught sight of the weapon in Mire's hands.

"You have to be prepared," said Banks. "We don't want them coming after us in one of their gunships. If we blow our cover or they find out, that is."

"You're _asking_ for it," she replied.

A second later she heard the large weapon slam to the ground. A mottled brown hand came up to her face, taking her jaw. With surprising force, Mire slammed her against the cold metal hull, his fingers digging into her cheeks. The back of her skull felt like it had split open, and it was difficult not to release a shriek of pain. Her hands in reaction had grabbed his shoulders but he suddenly held a switchblade under her chin, stopping her from shoving him away.

"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't cut out your tongue, human," he hissed, poking the tip of the blade into the underside of her chin.

She painfully swallowed, feeling the proximity of the blade, the tendons in her neck sticking out like thin cables.

"You really want a reason?" she managed, staring at the black pitiless holes he had for eyes. He seemed to take her in for a moment, looking for some possible flaw or weakness in her expression.

"That's enough, Mire," said Marik from behind them.

Mire gave her already throbbing jaw a painful squeeze and turned away in anger, marching back to the cockpit. Banks and Marik were staring at her.

"It would be unwise to provoke him further," said Banks, hoisting his large bag onto his shoulder.

The ship had been on autopilot for the last twenty minutes, and they were close to docking. She didn't say anything, only picking up her bag that had fallen onto the floor. She noticed they in lighter armour without the flashy blueness of the Blue Suns attire. When the ship finally docked and they gathered at the airlock, Banks turned towards Laurel who hung at the back of the group.

"You fuck this up, then it's Aria who you'll really be pissing off. Not us," he said.

"She won't live to see Aria's wrath," mumbled Mire.

They said nothing else when the door hissed and shot open, revealing a docking port. These were the biggest bunch of callous, sexist, violent bastards she'd ever travelled with.


	18. Chapter 18

Dellria was nestled in a cosy corner of the bar Eternity, sipping a cocktail. They dropped off Hobbs at the nearest hospital, saying they'd meet him back on Omega when this was over. Laurel kept her mouth closed, not wanting to provoke another altercation with Mire. She would bide her time. They still didn't know she was once Alliance, and could still fight well after all these years. Marik still looked as if he didn't recognise her, not even as the woman who served him drinks over a year ago. She hoped it would stay that way. Dellria greeted them, soon ordering drinks for the group.

"You're replacing Hobbs then?" she said, eyeing Laurel.

She wore a long dress, which seemed to be the current fashion and had unusual white markings around her eyes.

"Long story short, girl here was set up by some batarian junkies, hoping to catch a flight off-world. Ended up selling em pretty short, as Hobbs wanted in. They ended up dead, and he shot in the kneecap," explained Banks. Dellria smirked, swirling her cocktail in her hand.

"Sounds like the work of Aria," she said. "I'm glad you've got a female in your team this time round. It's going to make this job a whole lot easier."

Laurel shifted uncomfortably in her seat. The bartender, also an asari, came over with their drinks. Laurel eyed the alcohol, but did not touch it.

"Info?" said Banks, after swallowing a large sip of his drink.

"How do we know this place isn't bugged?" hissed Marik, leaning over towards Dellria. She just continued to smile easily.

"Don't worry, handsome. I know the owner of this bar. Anyway, Scott holds this high-stakes quasar event every year. He likes to bankrupt others and watch them squirm. He is incredibly skilled at it and has had a lot of practice," she said.

"However, he's immediately invested Aria's money in this pro-human group, Cerberus. I don't what exactly he's funding, but it's some dirty little lab secret and he doesn't want anyone to know about it. However, we'll no longer know about it. The facility was recently infiltrated and destroyed by the STG after the Council found out that some salarian official had been kidnapped. We won't know what Cerberus was up to, but Scott lost his investment because of it. And now he's going to have to win it back."

"So what you're saying is that two of us need to beat him at his own game?" said Marik, his deep voice stern with disapproval. Dellria didn't blink.

"That's fucking impossible," snapped Banks. "No. We go back and tell Aria her money is good as gone-"

"She doesn't take no for an answer," growled Mire. His drink had been completely downed. "That money is as good as real."

"You need to beat him, yes," began Dellria again, casting her large indigo eyes over them.

"I ain't good at gambling," said Banks.

"I'd recommend someone who is, then," said Dellria. "I can get you in, but the tickets are limited. He doesn't let just any old kook in. And it's smart dress. So you can't walk in armour. Or what she's wearing." Dellria waved her hand over Laurel's attire.

"Well, lady, I am not a fan of the current fashion, either," replied Laurel.

She'd be damned if she was to wear those long slim-fitting dresses with the holes in them. Dellria ignored her. Mire sat back against the chair with his arms crossed.

"Fuck wearing formal," he snapped.

"Oh Goddess," Dellria rolled her eyes. "You're bunch of-"

"The two of us will go," announced Marik, his deep voice drowning out everyone else's. Everyone turned to stare at him in surprise.

"Us?" said Banks. "I'm not being your date for the night buddy, as handsome as you are-"

"The human woman," he replied. Laurel frowned at him. How could this possibly get worse? She stood up quickly.

"Don't even try," said Banks, this time pointing a pistol at her legs, hiding it behind the table.

"Haven't you threatened me enough?" she said, exasperated. Normally, she'd get on and do this sort of thing. She'd done odd jobs before, hell, she sold drugs to batarians on Omega. Spending a night in a casino trying to win back five hundred million credits with someone who had her tortured? She wet her lips, her body trembling with mixed anger, adrenaline and fear.

"We're not gonna fuck this up because you got cold feet," snapped Banks. "You don't have a choice. Sit down or you walk to the casino with your foot in a cast."

She sat back down, but her hands were trembling out of fear this time, more than anger. The rest of them ignored her, but she could feel Marik's eyes on her.

* * *

It was seven thirty pm, and the event wasn't due to start until nine pm. Dellria had obtained two tickets for them, saying she would be working at the bar. They were to go in, win the money, transfer the money, and then be picked up by Banks and Mire who'd come by in a cab. It sounded too easy. Laurel nervously paced in her hotel room – one that Dellria had kindly paid for (or didn't, she had no idea) – until her feet began to feel sore in her new heels. She examined herself in the full-length mirror. Her hair as normal was a goddamn disaster but the black strapless jumpsuit actually made her feel and look better than usual.

Dellria had surreptitiously set up a hidden camera in the bar, which happened to be near the large quasar table, where Mire and Banks would survey the situation. Laurel had never been one for formal events, not now, in any case. She hadn't been to something like this since she was a teenager – and that was usually drunk and drug filled house parties where everyone was in their underwear. She managed to tame her frizzy hair slightly by the time there was a knock at the door. Fixing some earrings in her ears, she palmed the button by the door and it slid open. She continued to try and fix her jewellery, but it seemed her ears had closed up in the last few years. Laurel saw Marik step into the room, his arms behind his back.

"We need to leave, promptly," he announced.

She gave up with her earrings and grabbed a small clutch bag, turning to face him. In her heels she was now a good five foot seven, but it was still ridiculously short in comparison to him. He wore a close-fitting black and white suit, outlining his peculiar thin waist and broad shoulders. His yellow eyes briefly drifted over her form, but he turned and motioned her out before him. She had to admit she enjoyed dressing up for this occasion – she hadn't worn perfume in years and buying shoes, particularly red velvet kitten heels, was a luxury she thought she'd forgotten. If he was waiting for her to compliment him, she left him in silence. Awkwardly, he cleared his throat, drawing his eyes back up to hers.

"The event will not start until nine pm, but I thought getting there earlier will introduce and familiarise us with the surroundings," he said.

"No alcohol," she said simply, meeting his cold eyes. He stiffened in his height a little.

"If I am to win this, I will at least need a drink," he snapped, making her jump a little. She had to bite her tongue in order to hold herself back.

"Why don't I play, and avoid a potential disaster if you get drunk," she replied.

He stepped a little closer to her, so that he now had to look down at her rather than across towards her. She could smell a sort of cologne now that he was near her. It was too hard to crane her head to look at him, so she made do with looking at the plain wall on her right.

"What I do with _my_ alcohol is my business, woman," he said. "And I do not trust a simple drug dealer to win a high-stakes quasar game."

"Oh so it's woman, now?" she suddenly laughed, but stopped quickly when she saw how closely he was analysing her.

"You need to cover up that mark on your jaw," he stated, pointing towards her face. She turned away abruptly, embarrassed.

"I don't have anything to cover it up. Why don't you ask Mire? He was the one who gave it to me."

Why did that feel oddly personal? He had a way of looking at her as if he could read her mind.

"It's too noticeable. I haven't forgotten how easily humans mark. And it's unfortunate your skin is so…. white," he said. She wanted to hit him.

"Oh yeah? You would know how easily humans break, wouldn't you?" she snapped at him. Her arms were folded across her chest self-consciously, but she hadn't turned back to face him.

"If we are going to tolerate each other, human, then I suggest you refrain from provoking me," he said darkly.

With shaking fingers, she brought up her omni-tool and dialled Dellria. Dellria, miraculously, gave her the code to her own hotel room, which turned out to be her apartment. Finding the transparent concealer, it took less than five minutes for Laurel to smear it over the purple-blue bruise that was spread across her jaw and chin. Marik waited outside in silence and they walked to the end of the street outside to grab a cab without another word. The Silver Coast Casino it was called, and Laurel saw a long line of people waiting outside to get their tickets checked. Marik got out of the cab first, offering a hand to her, but she ignored it and stepped past him to join the queue. Marik suddenly seized her bony elbow and pulled her back into him, nearly making her stumble.

"Our cover will be blown if you do not cooperate," he spoke quietly into her left ear, making her prickle.

"By not holding your hand? You'll be expecting me to kiss you next, turian," she said, but her voice was shaking.

She wanted him to let her go…

 _Please let me go_ …

She couldn't bear him so close to her breathing down her neck, especially as so much of her skin was exposed.

"No but we've got to appear as if we are enjoying ourselves," he said, turning her around to face him. "At least tell me what you are called."

"L-Laura," she bit out. He looked perturbed by her stammer, but made no comment.

"Absedeus," he replied. "If you are nervous then perhaps a drink will quell your apprehension."

 _Lord_ , was all she thought as she nodded and they joined the queue.


	19. Chapter 19

It was grander than Laurel expected, _much_ grander than the one she remembered on the Citadel. It still had the suspended spherical ornaments, round corner booths and electric purple-blue lighting, yet the space it inhabited was much larger. Laurel was aware Silver Coast was a run by a pair of asari sisters who ran several branches on Illium, one on the Citadel and another asari colony she'd forgotten the name of. It was the sort of place that attracted many well-to-do socialites, businessmen and what might be termed the urban bourgeois of the galaxy. Back on Earth, Laurel only remembered in her country of birth run-down casinos with slot machines, where men with scraggly beards and tired dogs stood outside smoking cigarettes. In fact, the place was so decked out with chandeliers, waiters and ball gowns that she felt somewhat underdressed.

It was apparently a casino which allowed smoking as well, for she saw several asari smoking out of long holders. It smelt completely unfamiliar to her and she had to hold her breath slightly as she caught a whiff. Laurel hadn't noticed that Marik had been marching in front of her, refusing to walk beside her. He was heading, as she guessed, to the bar, which was crowded and noisy. She had to stretch her legs to catch up, but she didn't want to push it either; she had to survive several hours in heels. Even if those heels were not as high as some of the human women here. It fact it was so conservative a few had turned round to stare at her outfit – not nearly enough flare or jewellery for their tastes. Not to mention the various tattoos that was on her arms. Was it always so stiff?

"Straight reynor," she heard Marik say to the batarian bartender. Marik had already sat himself down at the bar.

"Is this how we get used to the surroundings?" she said, stepping up beside him to watch the batarian pour the turian whiskey into a clear glass. "The bottom of your glass?"

"Keep your mouth shut, human," was all he snapped, making her balk a little.

God fucking _damn_ him, how she'd like to knock him to the ground. That would depend on if she could – she wasn't sure how squishy or hard turians were, but they looked damned _rigid_ to her. She saw the batarian nearly smirk at Marik's cutting remark. Her whole body was taut and tense with supressed anger and fear. She stood there, quite still until the batarian handed the drink to Marik, who snatched it and took a sip.

"Bathroom," was all she said after this, turning round.

"You're not going anywhere," he hissed to her. "Just because you're doing our job doesn't mean you're trusted."

"I think you can stop insulting me," she hissed back. "I'm not so stupid as to cock this up. Unless you'd like me to shit on the floor?"

Some woman next to them made a face at her language and moved off, complaining to her partner.

"Anyone corrected you on your atrocious language?" he said half a minute later, almost jokily.

She returned it with a stony glare and moved towards the bathroom, passing many others on the way - mostly asari, salarian and turian. Walking into the stall, she took out a packet of pills. She popped one out, letting it then dissolve on her tongue as she flushed the toilet. It would take another five to ten minutes for the drug to work. The last ten years had seen fits and starts of heart palpitations - an intense anxiety that had plagued her from head to toe whenever she'd been reminded of something she wished to forget.

Since she had seen Marik, it began again: a close pressing on her chest with her heart feeling as if it was going to stop. Clammy palms with the feeling like she was going to throw the contents of her insides out. For this evening, she needed to be calm. The sickness drifted off, and she returned to the bar. It was not yet that time where people had either become drunk or started dancing. A lot of mingling was happening. Marik was sat in the same place, and she sucked in a large breath before walking back to him. No wonder she needed medication. These days had been too taxing on her mental state. Usually she had learnt to box it away and never touch it.

The look of him she could barely stand either, which didn't help. He glanced at her as she approached, but did not say anything. It was going to be a long hour, and she knew he wanted to get here early to get his alcohol fix. Was he to be pitied? Perhaps. But her heart had hardened over the years. Everyone whom she might've trusted had betrayed and left her over the course of her life – including her family. That was why she refrained from making any friends or lovers. What was the point?

"That's an interesting…work of body art," said a voice beside her, interrupting her thoughts. Laurel turned round to see an asari, sipping on a blue cocktail.

"Which one?" Laurel replied.

"The one spread across your back. I do find humans with body art very stimulating."

"If that's a chat-up line, sorry not interested." The asari, offended, walked away quickly. Marik suddenly chuckled from behind her.

"Is that how you talk to everyone, huma - Laura?" he corrected himself when she turned to stare at him.

"I'm not going to justify that question with an answer," she said, looking across at the throng of people socialising and gambling. Marik's gaze was still on her.

"Any reason why you're so…cold?" he said to her.

"You're one to talk," she snapped. He looked at her, dumbfounded at the human phrase.

"It means someone criticising another for doing what they do themselves," she finished.

"Touché," he said.

Laurel quickly grew bored, telling him she was going to walk around the area. She was seriously pissed off that he wanted to use this hour to get drunk. He was supposed to win this – how would he if he was inebriated beyond concentration? Instinct told her that something was going to go tits up. She managed to waste half an hour, but was not the mingling type, batting off anyone who tried to talk to her. She found as she walked back to the bar Marik had been watching her.

"That your fifth drink, yet?" she chided him, settling her back against the bar, her elbows on its surface. He ignored her, checking his omni-tool briefly.

"Banks has transferred the five thousand," he said in a monotone.

"That's the buy-in fee?"

"High stakes, no limit. Aria has transferred enough so we can beat Scott at his own game." Laurel stared at his face for a moment. This was a ridiculous game in a ridiculous world.

"And if you lose? I can't imagine the oh-so resilient turian such as yourself having a penchant for gambling," she said drily, still studying his features.

His small yellow eyes coldly analysed her. He looked like he was about to retort, but thought the better of it. She had to admit despite her loathing for him the rebelliousness she was displaying was oddly enticing. If not somewhat dangerous. Perhaps it was because the turians were so regimented in their habits, that she couldn't help but wonder what it'd be like to tip him over the edge. It was hard to deny that she wanted to, because of all the built up anger in her that hadn't been expelled for years. Half an hour later, an announcement declared the beginning of the game. Marik had gone over with his whiskey, not saying another word to her. Laurel lingered at the bar, which wasn't far from the large table, granting her a clear view. She was surprised that this round of quasar was being played with traditional cards, probably due to its organiser being human.

Laurel watched the total six players approach the table; another asari and two humans joined a single salarian and krogan. The dealer was an asari. She decided to get a drink herself. The vodka tonic slipped down her throat very nicely, as she turned round to watch them. Marik even sat in his seat seemed to dwarf them all. Her eyes drifted to the battle-scarred male krogan who was quite unfortunately sat next to the salarian who was half his size. The lights seemed to have dimmed, and a small crowd gathered to watch the table, drinks in their hands. A smartly dressed man, a player, stood up and thanked the crowds with a piercingly white smile. He was the one who had made the announcement.

He was also the man who had been her superior in the Alliance. He was the one who had betrayed her.


	20. Chapter 20

_That total fucker._

Laurel couldn't believe her bad luck – as of late, the past had seemed to relentlessly bombard her with its ghosts. She stood there still, watching his figure at the table. He wore a white suit, and his hair was combed back. He'd aged badly. There were wrinkles and cracks and crevices in his skin, surprising for a man who made a living out of being a crook. His attire had plenty to show for it though – tailor made, crisp, well cut and she spotted several glints of gold on his fingers. He probably wouldn't recognise her – though she didn't yet count all her chickens before they hatched. She'd been told in the past that her eyes and hair made her quite recognisable, much to her bafflement. Her eyes were a plain steel-grey and her hair was a bird's nest – nothing out of the ordinary. Laurel tried to maintain a calm posture, walking back to the bar.

"Give me the strongest thing you have," she announced to the bartender.

The asari rose what would've been an eyebrow, but said nothing. Laurel turned back with her drink in her hands as she watched the game commence. Obviously Scott was a cover name – especially as an ex-Alliance solider, now turned criminal. His real name was Stefan Jensen and he'd been her commanding officer when they were sent to disarm a nuclear bomb eleven years ago now. She remembered him clearly – self-assured, handsome and perceptive. Yet he was also cunning and a wicked liar.

Eleven years ago there had been four of them – her tasked with providing the expertise on bomb disposal. Despite her shortcomings as a solider in the Alliance, she'd become extremely proficient at this skill of disarmament. The First Contact War was drawing to a close as Alliance superiors suggested, yet many humans were not convinced of this fact. The probe had been sent into turian space, initially in the hope it would do some serious damage. She squeezed her glass as she gazed at Jensen, who sat poised in his chair. The light caught on his brown, smooth hair as she watched him carefully, eyeing up his cards. She wasn't paying attention to how well Marik was doing, and decided she didn't care. Even if Aria didn't give her what she promised, she wasn't interested either.

She made the mistake of sleeping with Jensen once. Both of them had been drunk, both of them hadn't been in the Alliance for that long (he was four years older than her) and both were terribly lonely. According to him afterwards, she'd been a lousy lay and proceeded to joke with every other soldier about it for the next month after that. Even though she had been twenty-one, it had happened to her before and she felt unfazed by it. She could've retaliated a lot harder but decided it wasn't worth the effort. After that, they never spoke to one another properly after that. Laurel began to feel slightly light-headed, knowing the alcohol of that strong drink had set in. Good – Dutch courage was what she needed at this point.

"Human?" snapped a voice, probably Marik's.

Her eyes were hooked on Jensen, as he leaned in towards another man, whispering something. The man walked off, joined by another as he proceeded towards the back of the room.

"Are you not paying attention?" snapped Marik.

"You won yet?" she said. Marik was not amused.

"Hour break. I'm not even close to winning yet," he growled, signalling the bartender for another. "He's leading, but I'm not far behind."

"I'm happy for you," she said, scarcely taking notice of what he said. Her mind was full of Jensen. "I need to go pee."

Marik barely knew what she meant, but could only guess. She smiled at a few passing people, greeting a few asari, putting on a show before heading towards the back where Jensen's men had disappeared. It looked like some sort of emergency exit with its bare concrete walls and emergency lights. It was miraculous an alarm hadn't sounded when she opened the door. Laurel pulled out her pistol eyeing down the stairwell. The place was barely lit, as she held the weapon out in front of her, briefly giving upstairs a look. She took two flights down, hearing a whirring generator when she reached the bottom, but then she was suddenly plunged into blackness.

Her heart was in her mouth at this point. A small part of her regretted coming down this far – did she really want to make herself look conspicuous? She activated the light on her pistol, but before Laurel could see what was in front of her, she was unexpectedly thumped into a cold, concrete wall behind. A hand seized her wrist and bashed it hard against the wall. The pistol was tossed out of her hand. Two bright lights were shone into her face once the perpetrator had her immobilised against the wall, hands on both her bare shoulders.

"Laurel Westfahl," he spat her name. "I thought I recognised you the moment you walked in with that turian."

"What can I say, I must be a sight for sore eyes. I hardly anticipated your unwanted appearance," she quipped.

Jensen let go of one shoulder and pressed the cold barrel of his gun to her forehead. She saw two of his men shining lights into her face from their assault rifles.

"Are you working for Aria T'Loak?" he said to her.

"Go to hell," she taunted.

"Each kneecap," was all he said, signalling to his men behind, who pointed their guns at her legs.

"Why don't you just end my pathetic life, Stefan?" she said to him, staring at his pale eyes. "You fucked it up anyway."

His eyes drifted away from hers in thought. He then pulled away from her shoulder, but still held his pistol at her.

"Was a long time ago, Laurel," he sighed.

"Bullshit!" she cried at him. "It was you who hacked the controls, you who stopped me from disarming the bomb. You wanted it to kill that turian fleet."

"No it was you who failed to disarm it properly. You never should've been picked for the mission," he said through gritted teeth.

He looked like he could barely control himself. Sweat dribbled down his temple and his once immaculate hair had now come loose, falling into his eyes.

"That's what you said to the Alliance," she said, her voice becoming higher. Jensen signalled his men away, who retreated back up the stairs. "I knew it was you who had the turian supply line cut at the last minute – even though we were on the verge of a stalemate."

There a brief silence as he regarded her.

"You know they tortured me," he said to her, rising fury in his voice. Fear made her jaw clench, her blood pounding away underneath her. "I saw them kill many innocent residents on Shanxi. They attacked us for no reason – we were breaking their pathetic rules. How were we to know…?"

"You set me up - you lied, you son of a bitch. You're lying now! They never tortured you. They tortured me because of you! Your setup on Shanxi was pretty good I have to admit – striking my head hard enough so I couldn't remember a thing. Leaving me in a bombed-out building. Killing the rest of the squad, making it look like the turians did it…." she hissed with barely contained rage, her nose wrinkling.

He ignored her, pale eyes sharp as he still spoke.

"Yet here you are now…. working with a turian…. Or are you sleeping with him? Wouldn't be below you, Laurel. You were always a whore and everyone knew it," he said.

Laurel suddenly slapped him across the face, as hard as she could, making him stumble back. She stared at him as he turned away, wondering if he was going to retaliate, but much harder. To her shock, he began laughing, twisting back to face her. Enraged, she attempted to hit him harder this time, but he caught her arm.

"Is that why you decided to blame it on me?" she said, her breath caught in her throat.

"You were just in the wrong place, at the wrong time," he said to her. He put his pistol away back in the inside of his suit jacket, smirking at her. "Don't take it personally, Laurel. You were not that special." She studied him unblinkingly before answering.

"Neither were you," she told him. He only laughed again, turning away towards the stairs.

"Next break, you come here to tell me what I want to hear or I have both you and your alien boyfriend killed."

"Do what you like," she said to him, her voice now shaking. "I have no real stake in this."

He ignored her and disappeared. Laurel continued to stand there in shock before pulling herself together. She walked quickly to the nearest bathroom, hoping there wasn't a queue or crowd inside. The bathroom was probably the most elegant and ridiculously overdone she'd seen. The mirrors were gold adorned and lit, while each cubicle was large enough to fit a double bed. She was thankful anyway – amongst the padded seating, the fragrance, and the toiletries (?) there was a mirror. She combed her hair with her hands, finding a lipstick in her clutch and reapplied.

She saw her exposed ankles and the tops of her feet had become dirty – probably from the scuffle downstairs – and dunked her feet in the toilet bowl to wash it off. When satisfied she washed her hands in the sink, casting a brief fake smile towards a woman who was doing her hair on her left. Her face was pale as she caught her appearance in the bright mirror. What was her stake in this? She had her ride. Laurel tried to formulate a way to escape from the casino. Fuck her belongings back on the ship. When she exited, Marik broke away from a nearby conversation and strolled right up towards her.

"What the hell have you been?" he hissed. "Two of Scott's men have been watching me without breaking their gaze."

"To powder my nose," she drawled at him, heading back to the bar.

 _Damn him to hell,_ she thought _. I need to get out of here as fast as I can. Screw him and Jensen._ Marik barely blinked at her reply, marching to catch up with her quick gait towards the bar.

"Don't lie to me," he persisted. "What happened?"

"Come off it, Marik," she barked. He stopped her before she could reach the bar.

"I smell fear on you," he said.

She nearly raised an eyebrow, but then remembered he was a strange alien whom she'd had no idea about. The last eleven years she kept well away from reading much about the known alien races. She wasn't a xenophile in the slightest.

"I've been afraid for a long time," she said.

"This is recent," he said back. "There are grazes on your upper back and your right hand. It looks like someone has attacked you."

She bit her lip, thinking quickly.

"Some drunk bozos out the back," she said. "I thought I'd walked into the bathroom. Guess I've had a lot more to drink than I thought."

She met his small, piercing eyes, which were chillingly unblinking.

"Every word that's come out of your mouth has been a lie, I know it," he told her. Laurel was close to loosing her temper then.

"What's there to lie about? Surely you don't think I'm here for-"

"You know Scott, don't you," said Marik, his voice now lower so others couldn't hear.

His somewhat predatory posture and stare might've made her baulk previously but after her scuffle with Jensen she was nothing more than irate. Laurel stood there, contemplating what to say. For once she didn't feel utter loathing for him, for she knew who the real asshole was in all this. She straightened up suddenly, meeting his eyes.

"I knew him in the Alliance," she replied. Marik, if it was possible, briefly looked shocked.

"We need to find somewhere quieter to discuss this," he eventually replied.

"There is nothing to discuss," Laurel snapped. "We're not in the Alliance anymore." With that she turned from him quickly, moving back towards the bar.

* * *

Author's Note! 

Hey fellow fanfic readers/writers, thank you so much for all the reviews, faves, follows and the views! Glad you're enjoying it :)


	21. Chapter 21

It took a second trip to the bathroom, with Marik's eyes on her back. It wasn't in her interest that he didn't trust her. But who in this miserable life ever trusted one another? She waited until the game commenced again, seeing that the table was already two players down, before heading to wash her grazes. It was unfortunate she'd been wearing something that revealed her upper back. She was glad for a mirror in the lavishly large toilet stalls, pressing wet toilet tissue into her upper back. There was no use hiding it, despite the large tattoo displayed across her upper back. Laurel then returned to the bar to watch the game. She saw that Jensen looked unruffled by their encounter, but his eyes were unfalteringly fixed on Marik.

It was then Laurel realised that whatever the outcome, they had been found out by Jensen the moment they walked in. It was to be unanticipated, but she found herself drumming her fingers on the bar's surface with her mind ticking away. She wasn't sure how much Marik or Jensen had in the pot, but she was willing to bet that it was Jensen who had the upper hand. If she could tell anything about Marik, other than he was cranky, xenophobic and an alcoholic, then she was definitely unsure about his gambling skills. Quasar, much like the human blackjack, required certain technique and thought.

Her mind ticked away as she sat there, drinking a vodka tonic. There was no easy way that Jensen could force them to where she'd been confronted beforehand. Did he think she was stupid? She watched Marik's back, the suit of his formalwear moving with his large carapace – much like the shoulder blades would do of a human, but much subtler. These were two men whom she owed nothing to. Laurel turned her head to the entrance of the casino, guarded by a couple of turians. If they didn't meet Jensen – surely he wouldn't want an out-in-out gunfight in this casino? She wasn't sure whose wrath was worse, but keeping Marik from her true identity was the number one goal on her list.

During the second break Laurel spotted Dellria, who approached Marik. She cast a surreptitious glance over towards her. Her mind kept ticking. Marik, who seemed to have sobered up (miraculously, she thought), then approached her with a steady gaze. He didn't say anything for several moments before muttering to her.

"One of her contacts says she saw you engage in a…disagreement in the emergency stairwell," he said, his voice so low she could barely hear him.

Laurel felt suddenly lost for words. _Who is the bigger enemy here_ , her mind thought. _Jensen. It's Jensen. That bastard ruined your life._ She pretended to look uninterested, picking at the edges of skin around her nails. Marik in irritation cast a glance at her fiddling hands. The fingers, although upon first glance seemed normal, reminded him of something. He brushed it away as he spoke again.

"Laura – I need to you to be frank with me," he said sternly.

She shuddered at his tone. It was the first time he had used her name without condescension – despite it not being hers.

"I'm endangering the mission," she replied, her tone level. Marik's large mandibles tightened in response.

"As far as Aria's concerned, you're taking Hobbs's place," he replied after a brief silence. "Surely as a resident of Omega you know better than to anger Aria. It sounds like this is a paltry excuse for backing out. Once this is over you can leave."

"You don't understand," she snapped, clutching her glass tightly.

She wanted to break it, feel the glass pierce the palm of her hand. Marik swivelled round to properly face her.

"Well _make_ me understand, human," he said in a low tone, which sounded too much like a snarl for her liking.

"I need to speak to Scott. If you let me speak to him, then the mission won't be endangered," she pleaded suddenly.

Marik's ochre-eyed stare bored straight into her. He was an alcoholic, he was a mercenary, but she could tell that he hadn't lost his unnerving perceptiveness since his days as a military general.

"You'll do no such thing. I don't care what history you have with him, it's irrelevant here."

She began to grow angry, feeling like he was scolding her as you would with a child.

"It's far from irrelevant," she barked at him. "If it were then I wouldn't be wasting my breath telling you."

Laurel made to move away from the bar, hoping to catch Jensen. As soon as she did, Marik seized her forearm roughly. Snapping her head to look at him, the yellow in his eyes ever so familiar, something in her finally wilted.

What she knew about the turians was that they evolved as a predatory species that did not develop the use of spears when naturally they had their talons. Those talons would probably have no difficulty breaking an arm. She returned to her seat instead with old fear in her heart. How could she make him understand without betraying her true identity? Laurel was already becoming used to the fact that he did not remember her and that suited her just fine. Her imagination wasn't equipped enough to envisage his reaction when he did remember.

In the end, Marik stood back up and walked back to the table. She'd lost her chance to either warn him or try to find Jensen. Ten minutes into the third quarter, he already had the upper hand. She didn't ask him how much was now in the pot – but the players round the table were becoming few and far between. The third break her head began to reel from one too many drinks – although she would've considered that if she were still in her twenties to be incredibly 'light-weighted.' She was thirty-five and more adult than she thought to be. Dellria approached her from behind, out of the blue.

"Who are you really?" she began, abrupt.

"Excuse me?" said Laurel, not turning around.

"Don't be coy," said Dellria, her eyes narrowing into purple slits. "I know it's not your choice to be in this position, but is it worth getting yourself, Marik and I in danger? Or face the wrath of Aria?"

Laurel ignored her and reached back towards her glass, taking a long slip. Her eyes were on Jensen. Dellria didn't take this small act of rudeness kindly, reaching to pull Laurel's free arm back at a painful angle. From the outside, it looked like a warm, if somewhat romantic embrace. Her drink sloshed over the pants of her jumpsuit and she cursed loudly.

"I don't trust either of you," spat Laurel. Dellria responded by letting her arm go, miraculously. This was only because Marik was walking back towards them.

"Is this the last break?" asked Laurel. Marik nodded. Dellria came round from behind Laurel.

"Drink, Absedeus?" she said to him. He muttered an imperceptible yes. A minute later when he slugged his whiskey down two of Jensen's bodyguards approached them. Dellria was back behind the bar.

"Can I _help_ you, gentlemen?" snarled Marik, sarcasm evident in his tone.

The men, both dressed in tuxedos looked towards Laurel as well, whose heart nearly missed a bit.

"Follow us sir, please," began one bodyguard, taking Marik's arm lightly.

Marik, who knew better than to protest, reluctantly got up. He sent Laurel a quick glance before they were turned away towards a door at the back of the casino.

* * *

 **Author's Note: Hi thanks for all your support/reads/faves and follows!**


	22. Chapter 22

**Mini warning** : Some nasty violence in this chapter. This story isn't all doom and gloom I swear :3

* * *

This time the 'meeting' was not hidden away in a dark, emergency stairwell. When the doors closed behind them, both Marik and Laurel felt the barrel of a gun press into their backs. They were instructed by the bodyguards to move down the step, two flights down this time, to where Stefan Jensen was stood waiting. The dim light shone off his gelled hair. Before anyone could speak, the bodyguards hit Marik and Laurel simultaneously in the back of the head with the butt of their rifles. Laurel fell to the ground, her head spinning – Marik continued to stand.

"Who are you, really?" began Marik. Jensen wasn't in the mood for formalities, it seemed.

"I'll be asking the questions, if you don't mind, turian," began Jensen. "Your girlfriend has obviously not told you her true identity. Otherwise you'd be privy to more knowledge about this situation."

Laurel had managed to stand back up, pushing the man behind away roughly. She thought Marik would look at her. Instead he kept his gaze firmly on the man in front, saying nothing. Not anticipating their silence, Jensen's expression darkened.

"Alright, I'll give you a choice," he said. "Either you walk away and tell Aria to stick it up the ass…. Or you work for me. It was your girlfriend who gave it away, in case you didn't know," he then addressed Marik. "We used to know each other in the Alliance, did you know that?" Laurel, by this point, couldn't help but interrupt.

"For Christ's sake, Stefan, you don't know who you're dealing with," she began.

"Do you think I'm that _stupid_? That I wouldn't find out that some asari slut would have connections with the Blue Suns? Then you, Lauren, decide to walk in with some turian…I only could put two and two together. After all, it isn't surprising that some disgraced general and a drug dealer would end up working for the _Blue Suns_ …"

"I do think you're stupid," said Marik, his deep voice calm. He towered over Jensen by several inches, although Jensen didn't appear fazed. "Stupid enough to steal from Aria. And then hold a high-stakes quasar game in Nos Astra, of all places. Or, to add insult to injury, invest in an illicit project that was ultimately razed by the STG."

Jensen's face looked imperceptible for a moment – his face creased and flattened with pure fury.

"I'm well aware that you're capable of beating me at my own game," he finally replied.

"It would be easier if you let me do so," said Marik, unwavering. Jensen smiled, his small white teeth showing even in the darkness of the stairwell.

"I don't think so. Shame I lied about giving you a choice." Both bodyguards, who had the fortune of being brawly, suddenly pushed Marik to the ground. Before he could get back up, the men beat him brutishly until he could no longer rise. Laurel stood still, averting her eyes, flinching as she heard skin upon skin and the butt of the rifles pounding into flesh. She pressed her nails into her palms until she felt pain. What disturbed her more than anything was Marik's silence, apart from his now heavy, laboured breathing. On the pale concrete below them, blue blood was splattered like a Jackson Pollock painting. Jensen moved closer towards her.

"Not one word of protest? How cold," he laughed.

"Do what you want, Jensen. I have no real stake in this," she said. He chuckled again.

"You surprise me, Laurel. I thought perhaps you'd kept that noble part instilled by the Alliance in you."

"No, I made sure that was eradicated," she said.

Jensen seemed more than just smug at the moment. Unsheathing a sidearm he walked over to Marik who was half kneeling on the ground now – trying to retain some of his dignity – and promptly shot him in the upper thigh. This time Marik let out a half-gurgled shout, propelled backwards by the pain. A scuffle ensued. As Marik leapt towards Jensen, the bodyguards moved to intercept him. One of Marik's talons wrapped around Jensen's right forearm, moving to possibly wrench it out of its socket. Before he could do so, the bodyguards threw him back down on the floor.

Barely shaken, Jensen walked confidently towards Marik who remained silent. Laurel could see Marik's large carapace heaving slowly. Jensen stuck the heel of his shoe into the bleeding wound in Marik's thigh. She had trouble hearing his shriek of pain – maybe her ears did not pick up on such turian subharmonics. Perhaps he was silent. With his heel dug into Marik's thigh, Jensen then trained his gun on Laurel; pointed directly in the middle of her forehead.

"Want to know _who_ your partner in crime is, turian?" he said, although he was looking at Laurel. Her jaw set, blood turning to ice.

"The soldier who betrayed her own. Who instead of disarming the bomb, made sure it was rigged to go off…Barely escaped with her own life and mine. Killed everyone else on the mission…" She made a move to step closer, but he fired a shot inches away from her head, making her ears ring. It was an uncannily good shot.

"Dismissed from the Alliance. Spent the last eight years in prison…Got out on parole. What was it again? Murder - of two Alliance soldiers - and mutiny, failure to obey, insubordinate conduct…there's another but I've forgotten it now…"

"How nice of you to remember. Considering you-" she began. He cut her off by firing another shot by the other side of her head. This time she shrieked as she felt the hot bullet nearly brush her cheek.

"I might not so carefully miss next time, Westfahl," he smirked, pleased that he could get such a reaction out of her.

"You're not playing a fair game, human," spat Marik from below.

Jensen, briefly distracted by Marik, gave Laurel all the time she needed. It was a lucky shot, but the knife she pulled out from an inside holster underneath her jumpsuit was all she had. The knife landed in one of the bodyguards' chest, stunning him. Marik, using what little strength he had left, dragged Jensen to the ground. A wrestle between the two ensued, but it was clear the turian was the stronger. Pinning Jensen underneath him, Marik attempted to reach for his gun that Jensen held desperately above his head. The other bodyguard tackled Laurel, who'd dodged his first attack.

She then dealt him a blow to the solar plexus and then groin. Mostly undeterred, the bodyguard grabbed her by the throat and threw her with unsurprising force at the wall. Landing awkwardly, she hadn't time to rise before he booted her hard in the face. Something clicked as she felt the white hot pain ricochet up to her skull and back. Pretending to struggle against the pain on the ground, she unsheathed her other knife somewhat shakily.

"Fucking _help_ me, Marino!" she heard Jensen shout.

As he turned away, confident he'd outdone the woman, she swiftly slashed the backs of his heels, severing the Achilles tendons. He screamed in agony and fell, allowing her another chance. Pelting upwards she saw that Jensen and Marik still continued to struggle against each other. She kicked the gun away, trying to pull Marik upwards.

"Why are you helping him? What's he to _you_?" Jensen snarled through the blood in his mouth. With the heel of her shoe she kicked him across the face, hard enough that he became silent, probably unconscious. Marino the bodyguard was still crying with pain.

"Come on," Laurel mumbled. "We need to get out of here."

Marik said nothing, refused her arm for leaning on and walked down the next flight of stairs without a word. He followed her hurriedly. She could feel warm blood all over her face, and could hear his heavy breathing. She wasn't sure if Marino had broken her nose or not. It took them four flights of stairs before she could see a blue fire-exit sign, opening it and letting Marik exit first. They were thankfully on a lower level of the city - a quieter area as well. She wiped her nose on the back of her hand.

"Shit, my purse. I left it back…. have you any…?" She couldn't finish the last of her sentence as she looked at him. He was analysing her.

"You need to leave by yourself _now_ , human," he spat. It sounded as if he could barely control his hatred. His stance, despite being wounded, seemed taller and broader.

"All my things are on your ship," she said, faltering. It was unbelievable how things had taken a turn for the worse.

"I don't care. You ought to leave now. Otherwise you'll feel the ire of either myself, Jensen or Aria. It is not likely we will be considerate of what your excuses are." In all their haste and scuffle, she nearly forgot that Marik was her once captor – that he now knew the truth about her. Probably remembered her.

"What Jensen said about me was wrong," said Laurel.

"Poor choice of words," snapped Marik. He brought up his arm, tapping it urgently.

"Twenty credits to get you a cab and perhaps a cloth to wipe that blood off your face. There's one coming up right now. Get out of my sight."

She did indeed turn to see a cab draw up expecting customers, despite the fact that they hadn't waved it down.

"What're you going to do?" she asked. _What the hell?_ Her mind retorted. _You're stalling? It's the time to get away!_

"Explain the catastrophic urgency of our situation to Banks and then Aria," he said waspishly. "I don't know - I haven't got _that_ far. Why are you stalling me, human? It's taking a lot of restraint not to crush your wretched head into the ground." She fully believed that he would, if he wanted to.

"Why are you allowing me to get away?" she said, ignoring his question.

"I don't want to have to think about you," he said, walking right up to her. "I don't want anything to do with you. You are despicable, a disgrace to your species."

"I want redemption," she said, her voice breaking for the first time. But he wouldn't understand. He wouldn't understand the pain in her frown, the torment in her watery eyes and the anger in the fine lines around her mouth.

"You will not have it," he said. "I fantasised for a time what the Hierarchy would do to you if you were a turian-"

"Well I'm not," she retorted. Laurel suddenly spotted his blood, a dark navy, run down his long leg onto the ground. There was a lot of it.

"You need urgent medical assistance," she said.

He was about to retort something snarky when the door of the fire exit banged open so hard it slammed against the outside wall. Laurel instantly saw Jensen's furious face, hell bent on punishing this act of rebellion from her. She regretted not picking that damn gun up, or retrieving her knives. When did she get so sloppy? Just as she had done to one of his bodyguards, Jensen catapulted the knife towards held her hand up in defence. The knife pierced straight through the back of her hand, propelling her backwards as she cried out from the pain. The cab driver was miraculously still waiting behind. Jensen attempted to push Marik over the edge of the street, which lead straight to the ground- forty thousand feet down to the planet's hot surface. Laurel had jumped into the back of the cab.

"Come on!" she yelled at Marik. Marik, who looked like he was losing the upper hand, lifted Jensen suddenly into the air. He threw the man down with what looked like the last of his strength and limped painfully over to the cab. The driver sped off immediately.

"I'll make a guess. The hospital?" said the driver, a salarian, spoken somewhat irreverently.

"Yes-" began Laurel, trying to staunch the bleeding with her other hand. There was too much of it. She had no cloth.

"No," growled Marik. "Futura Inn."

" _What_? I hope there's a goddamn doctor there," she snapped.

"There will be," replied Marik, his eyes set straight away. Sensing Laurel's confusion, he continued.

"I was initially trained as a surgeon," he said.

"Wow, some night, huh?" said the salarian.

"I'll pay double for you to keep your mouth shut," growled Marik.

"Excellent idea," was the salarian's reply.


	23. Chapter 23

Futura Inn was hidden away in a quiet part of the city, right on the outskirts. Marik must've been acquainted with the city before, as he looked like he knew the Inn well. It reminded Laurel of something she'd only read in literature – a dark, seedy bar lit by amber lighting. A battle-scarred krogan sat at the bar looking down his pint, served by a shifty-looking salarian. She didn't see one human or asari for that matter. They didn't pay outright attention to the pair as they walked in, bleeding, bruised and ruffled. The Inn's desk happened to be at the bar.

"Marik," greeted the salarian, his eyes as black as the night sky. He was hand-cleaning his tumblers, which Laurel thought strange. Usually they were all bunged into a machine. She saw his right hand was evidently robotic, stripped of anything to conceal the mechanics.

"One room. Two nights max," said Marik.

"No, we want two rooms if possible," interrupted Laurel. The salarian gave her a stony glance.

"One," he replied, taking a key-card off the rack behind him and pushing it towards them on the surface of the bar.

"Come back for payment once you've stopped dripping blood all over my floor," said the salarian. Before they could get away completely, he continued talking at their backs.

"And keep your pet human in tow, Marik."

Flushed with sudden humiliation, Laurel snatched the key card off Marik and headed upstairs, without taking the elevator. Room twenty-three wasn't very impressive with one double bed, a kitchenette and a bathroom barely big enough to wash in. The lights, like in the bar, were amber, casting a somewhat cosy if not moody glow over the room. The adrenaline wearing off, Laurel began to feel the deep wound in her hand. The blood had ran all the way down her arm, creating a somewhat morbid pattern on her arm from where it had now dried and resulted in cracking. She needed a warm shower and a hot drink more than anything. The knife was still embedded in her hand – according to Marik she should not remove it.

Not yet – but as she sat in the bathroom trembling, the prospect of pulling it out was becoming harder to accept. Laurel had left the door open for him, and now she heard it slam. His figure slowly came into view, seeing her gazing at the knife in her hand. She finally looked up at him, still trembling. How would she feel safe sleeping in this room with him? He had a medical kit in his talons and he moved into the tiny bathroom, under the bright light, throwing his evident alien features into full view. Last time she'd seen him up this close in bright light was eleven years ago before her life was ruined. Would he believe her? It was clear he did not want to engage in conversation, and took her hand roughly.

"Please, don't," she murmured, quivering at his close contact.

He ignored her, forced her hand into the sink and swiftly pulled the knife out. There wasn't enough voice left in her to scream with agony.

"I'm going to puke," she said.

"I can only presume what you mean," he snapped. He wrenched her hand upward and squeezed hard on the wound.

"Why must you be so rough," she snapped back.

"I'm amazed how you were a solider. You can barely cope a small wound," he sneered at her. She was about to retort but then abruptly vomited into the sink. When she was finished, she realised that Marik was still holding her hand, now at an awkward angle above her head.

"I'm amazed you're still standing," she finally breathed.

"Keep your hand elevated and finish your vomiting in the bowl, human. The smell is rather nauseating." Marik let go of her hand, and walked out of the room. She fell onto the floor, her vision spotting and her hearing ringing.

When she woke again, she was still sprawled on the ground, but her hand was elevated, propped against the metallic wall of the bathroom. Rising slowly, she kicked off her heels, seeing Marik tending to his wound. She saw the clock on the wall announcing it was two o'clock in the morning.

"Sterile solution in the bag. Wash your wound with it and clean out any dirt," he ordered her. He was expertly wrapping what looked like a bandage round his upper thigh – the bandage was slimmer and more transparent than a human bandage.

"You will have lost a lot of blood," she said, watching him carefully.

"Who is the doctor here?" he said, his voice quiet. "Do as I say." She knew better than to argue with him, imagining not many had dared to disagree with him in his lifetime. Washing the wound with the half used solution, over the sink, tears of pain slipped down her dirty cheeks. She pulled out a bandage, and wrapped it round her hand, not bearing to look at the sight of the wound for much longer.

"Why are you still here?" she asked him, her voice quivering. It seemed like her heart and mind were ready to crumble completely after so long. He stepped behind her and suddenly pulled her bandages off, unsatisfied with her wrapping.

"Why is your skin still gaping open, human?" he said, inspecting her hand like it was a dead cat. She then forcefully pulled her hand away, despite the pain. Anger seemed to make the pain powerful, almost pleasurable.

" _Stop_ calling me human," she spat through gritted teeth. "I don't know what your skin does, but mine takes a long time to heal." He narrowed his eyes at her.

"How long?"

"About ten days. Depends on the wound. How do you not know this for a doctor?" He ignored her question and took her hand back, despite her overwhelming urge to hit him with said wounded hand.

"Treatment?" he said.

"Stitches," she said. Marik stood there for a moment, analysing the wound.

"I'll get Gaer to fetch us some supplies. We have to lay low for a while," he said. She felt it was the nicest thing he'd ever said to her.

"Gaer?" she asked, looking up at him.

"The barman and the innkeeper," was his reply.

"He looked shifty, and he was damn well rude," she said. His mandibles softened in slight, unexpected amusement but he turned away to hide this barely perceptible expression.

"I trust him more than anyone. He has to maintain a, uh, certain image." He re-wrapped her bandage as they both sat on the bed in silence. His gloved talons brushed delicately against her skin as he tightly wound the white bandage round her hand. Laurel looked at his own bandage, which had now bled through – like ink on paper.

"Stop trembling. I'm not going to hurt you," he said, more softly now. So close was his voice she couldn't help but wince.

"You don't know that. You might. Revenge is so bittersweet," Laurel whispered. Marik said nothing, but finished the bandage by tying it so tightly she couldn't feel her fingers.


	24. Chapter 24

Laurel woke up several hours later, having fallen asleep on the surprisingly comfy bed. Marik was nowhere to be seen. The pain in her hand had subsided slightly, but she was left instead with an intense throbbing – probably the worse of the two. Something in particular was bothering her, as she lay on her back staring at the smoke-stained ceiling. All her worldly possessions were still on the ship. Both of them now probably appeared as traitors to Aria. Laurel doubted she'd see those possessions again. After having lived on Omega for a year, she knew that such material things were meaningless and if you weren't careful anything of value made you a potential target for thieves.

The silver framed photograph of the osprey was a sentimental artefact, but to her it was precious. She remembered each line and colour, the texture of the photo and frame. Warm tears slipped out of her eyes as she remembered the circumstances that captured the photograph. It was at that moment that Marik returned, cautious in opening and closing the door again. He thought she was asleep – and she was mortified that he had walked in on this moment. She nearly hiccupped from her silent crying, for the tightly held air in her lungs was ready to burst out.

"You are awake?" he said, as soft as he could.

She licked her lips, tasting salt. Laurel didn't turn to see what he had in his hands, but could hear him plonking it all down on the table by the small kitchenette. She brushed her cheeks with the back of her good hand and sat up, hoping he hadn't seen. She banked on his lack of knowledge about human anatomy.

"I have food to last for two days. And something to, um…repair your hand with," Marik said to her with his back turned.

Laurel frowned, watching him. Was he aware of her misery? She sat patiently on the bed. He walked over to her, his gaze stern.

"How long were you asleep for? The dressing has soaked through. You needed to keep your hand elevated slightly," he reprimanded, sitting beside her. He was a little too close for her liking, she could smell his distinctly alien scent – not altogether repugnant, but not exactly _Hugo Boss_ either.

"I don't know. How long were you out for? It's six am," she replied. She saw he had a much sterner dressing on his leg. Clearly she was the weaker species.

"I needed to operate on my leg. And fetch you supplies, with the help of Gaer of course," he said, taking her hand and unwrapping her bandage.

"I didn't know you were a doctor," she whispered, watching his talons. It hadn't escaped her attention that she'd always seen turians with their talons covered, and probably for good reason.

"I started my military career as a medic and later trained as a surgeon," he answered.

"How'd you end up as a general?" she asked him.

"Enough questions, human," he snapped. He took out transparent thread and a needle when he was finished cleaning her wound with saline solution.

"You need to thread this for me – and I will try my best to stitch your skin back together." His command made her skin crawl – she'd always had trouble with authority. She could see why he rose to such a prominent position in the military – there was no refusing him.

"No…no analgesic?" she said. His look seemed to darken, the brow forming what looked like a frown.

"For a little stab wound?" he mocked her. Laurel felt the urge to hit him hard.

"Fuck you," she barely whispered. He leaned forward as if he didn't hear her properly, in a pose that was clearly derisive.

"What was that, human?"

"FUCK YOU!" she yelled, having lost it finally.

She jumped up as she said it and kicked the medical box that was on the floor across the room. Bringing her hands together she elbowed him as hard as she could in the face, hearing a sickening smack as she did so. He fell to the floor with a groan but quickly recovered, bringing a leg round to kick her off her feet. She landed with a thud two seconds later, grunting and heaving as she struggled to stand back up. He rose up, spitting blood onto the dirty carpet, facing her head on. Laurel hovered from foot to foot, deciding which way was the best to tackle him. She did not want to be here anymore – she had to get out. Tackling him head-on would probably be one of the poorer choices, but she had speed and agility on her side.

"Come on, human, what is your next move now?" he jostled her.

"Putting a fucking bullet in your brain," she hissed.

"What atrocious language. I though the Alliance military would've ground that out of you," he sneered.

"You forget I'm the Alliance traitor," she replied.

She took the lamp on the bedside table and flung it at him as hard as she could. He brought up an arm reflexively, the lamp smashing as it collided with him. Laurel then catapulted herself at him, hoping to stun him by thumping him into the wall behind. If he was stunned, she could make her escape. As they collided, he suddenly grabbed her loose hair and forearm, lifting her up and turning to slam her into the wall. Her head banged against a picture frame as she struggled to throw him off, her feet dangling in mid-air. She reached round to grab the frame, and shattered it into the top of his cowl, before he snatched the empty frame back off her and chucked it behind.

"Do not attempt to fight me any longer," he hissed at her. His face was so close she had to turn her head away in repulse.

"I can't bear your sarcasm and hatred anymore," she spat.

"It's clearly something else," he said to her. He was pushing her harder into the wall, and her wounded hand was trapped between both their chests.

"Look at me!"

"You _tortured_ me," she said, looking at his eyes. "I'd been betrayed by my own, and framed to make it look like I'd committed it. I was a bomb disposal expert. They sent me along with Jensen to disarm and dispose of it." Her voice was now calm and lacked the previous anger. His grip softened a little, but he didn't lower her back down to the ground.

"Please don't say you don't remember me," she pleaded. Perhaps that was the worst insult. It was the first time she had seen his yellowy eyes properly close up – the pupils were black and small, almost indistinguishable against the yellow, but she could see different flecks of russet browns in the irises. Almost human.

"I remember you, Laurel Westfahl. It took Jensen's utterance of what you did and your real name to trigger my memory properly. I can see now why I am so objectionable to you," he replied, his eyes moving away from her in thought. He let her back down and abruptly turned away. She saw him walk over the shattered remains of the lamp, crunching it below his large feet.

"I get the impression you find humans 'objectionable'," she said. Her wound was throbbing more than ever after their fight and there was fresh blood all over her arm and hand.

"Don't deduce anything about me," he snapped. "But if you do, then you're correct in assuming such a thing." There was a silence between them for several minutes. Nothing but the hum of the refrigerator.

"Quite a commonplace practice in my culture," he began, his back still turned to her. "Is the easing of stress, physical pain or rivalry between soldiers through sparring."

Laurel was quick to answer.

"I don't think that'd be a good idea. You've already proven who's more efficient in hand-to-hand combat," she said. He turned back round to face her.

"You are injured. Sparring is not just a test of strength, it is a test of skill," Marik replied, ever vigilant.

"I don't understand what you're saying," she sighed, tired from all of this now. The turian stepped towards her, his gaze steady.

"We both have grudges to unburden," he said, more softly this time.

"It's not the same for humans. What I see is a mental problem – not a physical one."

Marik's mandibles tightened – clearly her refusal had angered him.

"I do not wish to hear your sob story, _Westfahl_ ," he snapped. "Now are you going to let me attend to your hand?" She gaped at him, wondering why he wanted to resume his doctorly duties after she just swore at and assaulted him.

"Why?" she tried him.

"I don't. You need to hold a gun and shoot if we are ever going to make it off this planet alive," was his reply. Laurel hadn't noticed now that her body was still trembling from their scuffle, seeing pieces of broken glass scattered over the floor as she moved back towards the bed.

"I don't want you touching me," she said, moving to sit back on the bed. "I need to sleep. Maybe afterwards I can decide whether I want my hand stitched up by you."

She turned round as she lay on the bed, away from him. Several minutes later after he cleaned up the mess, the door to the room opened and closed again. Laurel half hoped he would not return. _Half hoped_.

* * *

Laurel had a dream – a memory dream.

Some of it was embellished and most of it was a flashback, a sort of scene amongst many other scenes. Perhaps it was because she had spent a lot of time thinking about Marik, being in his presence. The fact that he admitted he did remember her was unnerving - although how well she was still unsure. He was clear as day, although the background and the faces of the guards had dimmed somewhat. Her upper arm had been broken in the collapse of a building on Shanxi. Her memory was hazy and she couldn't remember why she was there, but the feelings of betrayal, hatred and guilt had remained.

Alien faces had hauled her into a bombed-out police station, where some of it had survived. They asked her politely first, accusing her of killing three hundred of their turian soldiers. Perhaps trauma had blocked out what had happened to her or maybe the dream was embellishing the violence she had to live through. The alien in charge – tortured her as punishment, as a result of his thirst for revenge, anger and maybe his embarrassment. He would look bad to many of his superiors, as someone who did not do their job properly. She had been in the hospital for weeks afterwards when they finally recovered her. Broken upper arm. Several broken ribs. Three fingers on her right hand, four on her left. Fractured skull. Broken nose. Her white skin was littered with grape coloured bruises, which gradually faded to various green colours. She'd seen her skeleton from x-rays more times than she cared to admit. She'd been in the hospital for a week without knowing it was inside a military prison.

* * *

She was murmuring and whimpering while she was sleeping. _How strange_. The room was cold and if he stayed any longer listening to her he'd do something he'd regret. Absedeus Marik removed himself from the room after cleaning up the mess that was on the floor. His joints ached from the last few days – hell, they always ached. He was no longer young and fit like he used to be. Gaer was setting up shop when he arrived in the main bar area, smelling the hint of a well-cooked turian breakfast. Gaer brought something through from the kitchen on a large plate and put it down on the bar surface with a knowing smile.

"Better than your usual choice," he said. Marik nearly smiled himself.

"Don't count on it," he replied, sitting at the bar and picking up a pair of turian chopstick-like utensils to eat his food. "After last night I could do with a reynor."

"Is that why you still have blood all over your face?" said Gaer, with a nod of his head.

"I washed it off…. Spirits above, I think she might've fractured something," he groaned, pressing his talons gingerly against his face. He snatched Gaer's washrag and smeared his blood on it.

"With what?" said Gaer, gingerly taking the rag back and throwing it into the incinerator behind him.

"Her elbow!" Marik began eating his breakfast in haste, hungrier than he realised. There was a brief silence as Gaer resumed his tasks, before turning back to Marik once he finished them.

"How long do you plan to stay here?" he asked, leaning his muscled forearms on the bar surface.

"I don't know. I haven't got that far yet," answered Marik, his mouth full.

"What of her?" Gaer motioned his head towards the door. Marik pushed his plate away, having finished his breakfast.

"We're having a hard time not pummelling each other into the ground at every spare moment."

"Rat her out to Aria," said Gaer. "After all, it's her fault the entire thing cocked up. The longer you stay here with her, the more they'll suspect you're in it with her."

"That's what I was thinking," replied Marik. "But it goes against everything that I as a turian believe in. What sense of honour have I abandoned?" Gaer looked rather taken-aback at this comment.

"You've gotta be kidding me," Gaer said. "You abandoned this 'honour' when you-"

"Don't you _dare_ ," snapped Marik, setting his hard gaze on Gaer finally. Gaer knew that pushing the turian's temper was not a wise choice.

"What I'm saying my friend, is that I can't see why this would be any…any worse."

Marik found silence and the own hum of this thoughts as he decided to examine the bar surface. His skin prickled at Gaer's words, which although rung true, were not duly welcomed. If many of his old superiors knew now that he worked for the Blue Suns, they would turn in their very graves. It was enough that his established reputation and career was tainted by his actions – something he'd never forgive himself for. Yet the bottle was still something he clung to, although not as avidly as he'd done in the past. The work of the Blue Suns had sorted that out. He'd been with them for as little as six months – most of the jobs he'd carried out were relatively tame. He was essentially a gun for hire.

It was clear that the human Laurel Westfahl still carried the wounds of her soldiering days. He guessed she was still relatively young, probably now around thirty-five but that was hardly adolescent. She hadn't changed much in the last eleven years, except her face had somewhat matured and her 'fringe' was much longer. It was worrying that his memory had faded – so much that he couldn't remember her when she was working in that bar. But what was _she_ \- a mere human he'd come across during the Relay 314 Incident? He was surprised at her declaration of memory loss – a rather unusual way to lie. Whether she had been telling the truth he tried to admit to himself he did not care. Her accusations against the human 'Jensen' being her betrayer perhaps were one of an ill mind. He thought that years spent in a military prison would've hardened her emotional resolve and matured her.

"I fear it's too late," said Marik suddenly. "Dellria, our inside source, would've seen it as a betrayal. From an outside view, the others would as well. I should've turned back."

"They have _that_ little faith in you?" said Gaer.

"It's the _Blue Suns_. They have no loyalty to one another but Aria – and that's out of fear, force or admiration. They'd happily stab one another in the back for credits." There was disgust in his deep voice.

"Sounds like you're becoming self-aware, Marik," replied Gaer, after a few minutes of quiet. "You couldn't turn back. I've no doubt that the human Jensen would've killed you both – with the help of his bodyguards. He has a fierce reputation."

"Perhaps I am," said Marik. "The minute I am left to think, that's when I become self-aware."

"That's why reynor is such a friend to you. It helps you forget," said Gaer. Marik let this one go. His previous irritation at Gaer's frankness had dissolved for now. For now, his mind returned to Westfahl.


	25. Chapter 25

The lights were off when Laurel woke again, but every inch of her skin was covered in sweat. Her hand seared with pain but her head, back and buttocks now ached, probably as a result of her fight with Marik. There was no sign of him, but after her dream she was glad he wasn't around. It was nine in the morning. Switching on the light she saw he had cleaned up the mess on the floor. She then quickly showered away the sweat on her body, leaving her hair to dry naturally when she towelled off. I'll have to find more clothes, she thought, pulling on her dirty black jumpsuit she'd worn the previous night. Her skin prickled with the cool freshness of the air. Gaer the salarian innkeeper was talking quietly to Marik when she found her way back downstairs. Thankfully the large bar was devoid of customers, and Marik was seated with an empty plate in front of him. Gaer stopped talking when she entered the room, his gaze hostile. Marik didn't bother to turn and greet her. With the memory of eleven years ago now completely fresh in her mind, awkwardness encapsulated her body making her grow stiff with dread.

"You did quite a number on him," Gaer spoke to break the silence. "All human females this violent?" His tone might've been jokey, but to her it was full of loathing. She ignored him and glanced at the turian seated at the bar with his large arms resting on the bar's surface.

"I thought you'd be gone by now," she said quietly.

"Would be unwise, huma - _Westfahl_ ," he corrected, without looking at her. She wasn't sure what to say now – what to do.

"They'll be looking for you here," said Gaer. "You've all come here at least once before." The salarian busied with something in a drawer behind him for a moment, before putting a small bottle of clear liquid on the bar surface. _Lidocaine_ , _10mg_.

"I've closed the bar until midday. You'll have plenty of time," said the salarian, nodding towards Marik.

Marik got up, somewhat reluctantly, beckoning her to follow him out the back after grabbing the bottle. She followed his tall form into a small room, what looked like to be Gaer's admin office, adjacent to the kitchens and store room further out the back. Marik took a syringe from a clear metal tray that looked pre-prepared. He then inserted it into the bottle, tipping it upside down, taking a step towards her. Laurel frowned, perturbed that he didn't say anything, but heard the door bleep shut and a pistol being cocked – right beside her ear.

"Before I stitch this hand of yours back up I need to be sure you're not lying to me. You've lied before, and I do not appreciate being lied to now," he said. He did not step closer, but his gaze was penetrative as he held the syringe. Hadn't she tried to sleep her anger off? Her jaw was set hard in place.

"Why are you asking me this now?" she asked through gritted teeth.

"How does he know you're not secretly working with this Jensen?" said Gaer behind her, pushing the cold barrel of his pistol into the back of her skull. She flinched.

"Why _would_ I be?" she whispered.

"Because its rather too convenient you know him," said Gaer again. "For all we know, you could be his infiltrator attempting to ruin Aria's plan."

"I don't fucking remember you being-"

"I wouldn't raise your temper, human," said Marik. "You're not in a good position for that. I'm asking this because if we're to work together in sorting out this mess, then I need to be able to trust you." She pursed her lips, still meeting his piercing gaze, unable to believe her ears.

"Trust? By putting a gun to my head? Why can I _possibly_ do to convince you?" she said.

"Tell us the whole story," seethed the salarian behind her.

"All evidence goes against me. There's nothing to prove my innocence in five seconds! How many times can I tell people that Jensen was the one who betrayed me all those years ago…that I did not plan to blow your fleet to oblivion?" There was a brief silence. The air was charged with electricity.

"What're you talkin about?" spat Gaer.

Marik's posture loosened a little, and she saw his eyes move to Gaer. He moved his head to signal the salarian out of the room, to which he huffily obliged. He made sure his temper was known, kicking a chair over before the door shut behind him. Laurel relaxed slightly, now knowing she wasn't in danger of having her brain blown apart. She drew up the chair and flopped down on it, suddenly feeling exhausted. Marik didn't say anything like she thought he would. She heard him washing his hands in the kitchens, and slowly unwound the bandage round her hand. The wound was looking septic. By the time he returned, Laurel held her hand out, her head turned away from him. She heard him put on medical gloves.

"Lying is considered very iniquitous in my culture," he began, preparing his utensils. His voice sounded even, but she could detect the underlining meaning in his flanging tone. She bit her lip in order to quell the latest abrasive insult on her mind.

"Turians are quite incapable of lying…for long periods at least," he continued.

"I don't like this mess anymore than you do," she said quietly. She heard him click his tongue in annoyance. She glanced to see his newly gloved talons holding a needle and thread.

"If you please," he said, his mandibles flaring out. Shakily she took the thread and automatically wetted the end of thread and tied a knot at the end without thinking.

"Are you trying my patience?" he said, not taking the needle and thread back. She'd realised what she'd done – a habit shown and then picked up from her mother. She nearly smiled at this simple mistake, but it was simultaneously painful.

"Sorry, it's a habit. My…mum was talented in the age-old…"

She lost herself, seeing how intensely he was observing her. He didn't say anything more, clearly uninterested in her family history and seized her hand, bringing her closer to him than she would've liked. She held the needle until he'd finished re-cleaning the wound and finally administered the anaesthesia, jabbing the needle into the top of her hand. His talons, more visible through the plastic of the medical gloves, were unexpectedly warm on her skin.

"Start at the end of the wound here," she said, seeing him hesitate for a moment after they waited for her hand to go numb.

"I can see why this particular wound needs stitching," he murmured as he took the needle carefully. It was deeper than he'd thought.

"Bring the needle out from the back of the skin, so the knot is secure," she told him, which he diligently followed. It surprised her how gentle he was being – only a few hours ago they were at each other throats.

"Now what?" he said.

"Push it back down through the other side of skin," she instructed him. "I don't know, but I'm guessing you'll want to make running loops. Then secure with another knot. You'll have to do that yourself." She knew it was probably the incorrect way – but how could both of them know?

"It seems you do know," he said as his hand slowly moved up and down as he threaded her skin back together.

She didn't say anything. Her knee brushed his larger one – if she could call it a knee, with the unusual spur sticking up beside it. Laurel tried to close her eyes and think of something else, anything but the turian who was sat close, stitching her hand up. She could feel her blood thrum through her. She was relieved when he finished it off with a cut of the thread. She'd pick up some antibiotics to treat the infection, providing that she got off this planet alive. It was a pleasure not to feel the throb in her hand anymore. He slipped his gloves off, throwing them into the incinerator in the kitchen. Laurel found herself waiting for him to return – she owed him that little. He re-entered the room, wringing his talons together although for a turian it was probably not a symbol of anxiety. His unusual skin appeared in several colours in different lights. Under the amber light of the bar, it was a dark brown. In this bright light of the office, it returned to its usual mushroom colour, interspersed with dark ochres and khakis. Realising that she might be observing him too closely, Laurel decided to look away for a moment.

"It is entirely likely that the rest of the crew will suspect us as betrayers. Either that, or they assumed we were assassinated," he announced. It was beginning to dawn on her that she was essentially homeless with no savings, little in the bank and no possessions such as clothes, passport and her gun.

"Gaer can secure a flight offworld – in a couple of hours time," continued Marik, breaking her thoughts.

"I don't have enough for an offworld flight," she said, frowning. Marik shifted from one foot to the other. If she knew better, he appeared somewhat awkward.

"Luckily, Gaer knows the pilot. He can make an exception…"

" _Turian_ , I don't have any life savings. My record is blackened – I'm reduced to working in waitressing jobs and believe me, that's better than most jobs I have to do," she said. It was hard to retain some semblance of dignity – she felt like he had seen too much of her failures and her vulnerabilities.

"I didn't have the option to save while I was in prison-"

"I'm giving you a chance to catch a _free_ flight offworld," Marik snapped. "That's it. I'm not going to sort out your problems there and then." She folded her arms, taking a step closer to him.

"And what're you gonna do? Stand behind and play 'hero'? Surely you're not going to crawl back to them? It still surprises me that some turian like you could end up with the most notorious merc group in the galaxy." Marik's body visibly stiffened, his hawk-like eyes narrowing and his mandibles widening on his face – as if he'd gritted his jaw.

"Haven't I warned you that pushing me is foolish?" he warned.

"Why?!" she cried, throwing her hands up exasperatedly. "What have I possibly got to lose?" He watched her for a moment as she paced the room in anger.

"Your life? You don't know me, Westfahl, as I don't know you. Let's keep whatever presumptions we have of each other at bay."

With that he pushed roughly past her, back into the bar area.

* * *

Gaer had indeed secured them a flight offworld, but he wasn't too pleased about the fact that Laurel was going to make use of it. It was a small ship, bound for the Citadel. Unlike most flights, it wasn't going to make any stops, seeing as most of its passengers were looking for a fast way out. It was nothing more than a large cargo-bay with huge crates that took up the baulk of the room. It was loud, airy and cold inside, and Laurel felt the brief spike of fear as the ship took off. The walls round them rattled. When they reached space, thankfully it stopped. Most of the inhabitants were single passengers and kept to themselves; a batarian, three turians and two humans. They all ignored each other as they sat in their seats, aligned next to each other against the wall.

The seats were as close to each other as you'd see on an Alliance escape pod, but as Laurel sat there she could feel the heat radiating off Marik's unusual plate-like skin. She managed to fall asleep for the first hour, but was jolted awake by the second. Turning her head, she saw Marik looking at her. He might've just casually glanced over at her jerky movement, but it unnerved her nonetheless. She had one of those dreams where she'd either fallen or continued to fall, ultimately making her jolt awake. Someone of them was where she was waiting for an old-fashioned bullet, looking down the end of a barrel. As soon as it hit her, she'd jar herself into consciousness. The cargo-bay didn't have much in the way of heating. She pulled her arms into her abdomen tightly, against the rising cold. She'd be glad to rid herself of his dirty jumpsuit, not to mention her heels, which made her feet ache like hell.

"If it wasn't you," began the gravelly voice next to her. She let him continue, too weary, hungry and aching to shut him off properly. "Then how did you let Jensen get away with it? You ended up on Shanxi." This surprised her.

"I thought you weren't interested in getting to know me," she replied without turning to look at him.

"I'm curious, is all," was her reply. Her forehead knitted.

"It's irrelevant now. And when we dock at the Citadel, I'll be another insignificant wisp in your turian memory," she said.

 _The_ _Citadel_. Laurel wasn't sure if she wanted to return. She'd been homesick for Earth for far too long. Living on space stations took its toll after a while.

"Well, while we spend our last few hours together, why can't I ask you such questions?" he said. Annoyance ran through her.

"I don't have to give you an answer," she snapped. He didn't push her any further, and she spent the next few agonising hours either ignoring him or trying to sleep. When the ETA was only an hour after jumping several relays, he finally spoke to break their silence.

"At least grant me _one_ response. You put the end of the thread in your mouth…you said it was a habit. Something to do with your mother." Her eyes were heavy and her buttocks were sore from the uncomfortable chair.

"My mum was a dressmaker…." she began quietly. The rest of the passengers were now awake, aware that their arrival was imminent. "She made all our own clothes, taught me and my sister how to sew. She started an online business…. made formal wear once we grew up and wanted to buy the latest fashions. But she quit."

"Fashion?" he asked, nonplussed. Surprised, she turned to look at him for a moment. His yellow eyes were not so prominent in the dark light of the bay. His eye sockets looked like large, black holes, which was unsettling to look at. She glanced away swiftly.

"Um…I don't know how to explain it. The style of clothing that is popular for the time…"

"I see," he replied, nodding his large head. "Not an aspect of turian culture."

She was dreading his next question – about her parents – but thankfully it never came. Why would he? He already knew that they had cut her off many years ago. He knew that as soon as they captured her – just a simple file searched and found in a bombed out police station on Shanxi.

"Quid pro quo," she whispered to him, unable to stop herself.

"What?"

"I told you something. Perhaps you can answer my earlier question – how did you become a General?" He stared at her longer than necessary, perhaps surprised by her courage to ask him again. His greying forehead plates moved for several moments, as if in contemplation.

"A couple of years after the relay incident. I'd stopped serving on the front lines as a surgeon when I was only a Lieutenant Commander," was his answer.

"How did you end up with-?"

"No more, Westfahl," he said quietly.

Laurel was surprised by his sudden lack of aggression. They soon enough docked at the Citadel, filing out of the ship one by one. It felt more than strange to be back on the space station, brimming with unfamiliar alien faces and lean, chromatic surfaces. She received a few lingering stares – she was quite a sight when she caught her reflection on a shiny wall opposite the ship; her bandaged hand, pinkish bruising beginning to show on her arms, her dirty jumpsuit and swollen nose. She forgot about the possibility of a broken nose. The other passengers had drifted off as she stood there contemplating her reflection. Marik came up beside her, his eyes meeting hers in the reflection. The top of her head only reached his shoulders. Only hours ago she'd tried to take his beastly, enormous form down, injured and exhausted.

"What're you gonna do?" she asked him, turning round.

"I still have an apartment here," he said. There was a stunted awkward silence, with only the sounds of the dock in the background.

"What about the Suns?" she persisted. "Aria?"

"Perhaps I have you to thank," he sighed, making her raise her eyebrows. "I admit I've made a mess of my life…the rest of it wouldn't be spent well in such a group. As for Aria who knows. She's smart enough to not listen to Banks or Mire who'll assume we were betrayers. I can't be sure, but it's a big galaxy. They'd use too much time and resources to try and track us down. Aria's preoccupation will be Jensen and her stolen money, not matter what happened to us."

This was a rather astute observation about Aria. He didn't ask what she was going to do, and she found whatever words were in her mouth had moved to form a bulge in her throat. He seemed strangely informal at this point with his shoulders slumped. He was tired, just like she was.

"Goodbye, Westfahl," he suddenly announced, and turned back round. He limped slowly away. Laurel stood there still, watching his form retreat away silently. Ships arrived, ships left, as she stood there. She watched until he was a dot, and then vanished.


	26. Chapter 26

**Six Months Later**

She found another waitressing job, and rented a somewhat run-down flat on one of the wards. It was small, sparsely decorated, but she'd seen and rented worse on Omega. She started the New Year working at a restaurant, a slight improvement from her previous dingy bars. It employed either asari or salarians, but they accepted her nonetheless. It was 2169, and she'd just turned thirty-six. Life was passing her by. She tried to catch up with the latest news from Earth, having been away from it for so long: L2 biotic implants had recently been developed, but was later followed by the incident where BAAT or the 'Biotic Acclimation and Temperance Training' base had been shut down under mysterious circumstances. The diplomatic issues between humans and turians were strained further. Laurel took as much overtime that was offered to her, hoping to save up for another offworld flight.

Originally she had returned to her old bar, _Mozarts_ , in hope of finding Jon. One of the employees told her he'd moved away and they hadn't heard from him since. In the same week, she contacted her university in hope of returning to her course. When she arrived at the very familiar campus in the presidium, the rather hostile student-office receptionist told her they'd retracted the funding for her course and taken her off the register. The reason was she'd been 'absent without leave.' By the end of that particular bad week, she'd been singled out by a group of seedy-looking turians, who beat her down a dark alleyway. A salarian witness offered to help her but she politely refused. This confused the salarian who asked her why.

"They chose to because I was the one that detonated that nuclear warhead in turian space," she said simply. She healed her wounds herself, refusing to let C-Sec get involved. What would be the point? She'd saved up at least half for a new course in six months. It would probably take her another six months or more to afford the university fees. However, it gave her a sense of hope, a goal for her to look forward to.

When it reached seven months, she unexpectedly crossed paths with her younger sister Anise. It was on the Zakera Ward and Anise was with another woman who was dressed just as smartly as she was. Her sister looked important with her tight bun, high heels and dress-suit – a diplomat, maybe? Laurel was going to turn away, hoping to dispel the situation quickly, but Anise called out to her.

"Wait, Laurel!" This was a sister who had shunned her years ago, along with her father and other sister. The initial resentment felt by Laurel towards her sisters had dissolved now, but awkwardness remained.

"Please, I know what you're thinking," said Anise, almost begging.

Laurel turned back round with reluctance. She spent the last ten years and more trying to block the painful, broken relationship with her family out. She looked at Anise's face, aged since she last saw it, but it had also changed – the childish roundness had disappeared. Laurel hadn't seen her sisters properly for the last eleven to twelve years. She'd bumped into Anise one summer, who had been late for a meeting and brushed her off awkwardly.

"Let's not force this already uncomfortable relationship," was Laurel's reply. Anise, to her astonishment, began to softly weep. Laurel didn't move to comfort her, letting her cry for a minute or so. Her sister's perfectly primed make-up was beginning to run in little rivulets down her cheeks.

"We need to talk," she said, after snuffling and patting her tears away with the back of her hand. She rolled her eyes to quell the tears and huffed as if embarrassed or exasperated with herself. This delicate action of maintaining her make-up and composure incensed Laurel more than she anticipated.

"I'm sorry for blubbering," blurted Anise.

"Just stop it," snapped Laurel. Anise fixed her with a cold stare when she was sure her make-up was still immaculate.

"We need to talk over dinner or something. I've some news you need to know," her sister finally said after a silence. A silence that throbbed with ache and unease.

"Whatever you've got to say, you tell me _now_ ," said Laurel.

She felt like lashing out at her perfect, primed sister – the one whom she was close to many years ago. The one who was now some diplomatic official who changed her name when she married, the one who probably had a child and owned a large, beautiful house. Anise seemed to have erased in her appearance anything that remotely resembled the young girl that Laurel remembered being close to; the glossy, straight hair; the expensive, flashy clothes with manicured nails and shiny handbags; the absence of anything that used to be her.

Anise had been intensely intelligent with bookish habits and a distinct lack of care for her appearance: in this context, she had no interest in make-up, clothes, or boys. She wrote creatively, avoided sports like the plague but enjoyed camping with Laurel and their mother during their school summer holidays. Ever since Laurel had stood up for her at school she had returned this favour. By the time Laurel had left school, their father had decided to spend his retiree's wage on private schooling for Anise and her youngest sister, Fern. Every day Anise came back a little different.

"Mum's died," was Anise's answer.

Every day Anise was less the sister she knew and more the product of a society that her father had wished for.

* * *

Absedeus Marik returned to his apartment, which was dusty and cold inside. After a year, it was essentially the same. Having an apartment in the Presidium mostly granted him safety from burglaries. He threw out the beyond-mouldy food in his refrigerator and went shopping for more, but only came back with bottles of reynor. The assistant in the food market had raised an eyebrow at him. He tried to keep a low profile – after all he'd been absent for over a year. The Hierarchy hadn't known what happened to him and he presumed he was on the records as AWOL or something similar. He spent his days in his too-large apartment, drinking himself into a stupor, keeping the television on for company. His apartment was Spartan furnished, which was typical for turian houses. However his was particularly devoid of anything remotely sentimental. After a day or so, he reappeared to buy food and spent the next few days eating, drinking and sleeping. Watching the occasional trashy show on his large screen.

By day six, he'd already allowed himself to get so drunk he'd vomited on and off for an entire day afterwards. He found himself thinking a lot about Westfahl while he slept off his hangovers. He cured a couple of hangovers by drinking even more. When he fell asleep, he had dreams and they were mostly involving her. It was unusual for him to have dreams, but then again, they often accompanied alcohol and quite vividly as well. Thankfully he didn't remember them by the mid-afternoon when he woke up, but his head was heavy, achy and full of her. Certain evenings he thought about her reactions towards him as he made his dinner. Making and cooking food helped him stay away from the bottle – one of the few things he was exceptional at apart from shooting and performing surgery. As a fortnight passed, his passion for the bottle waned slightly, and he took to cooking and keeping an e-journal.

 _Perhaps it is my ever-increasing age – I can't stand these hangovers. They're never pleasant but I barely felt it in my younger years. It is normal for turians not to feel such affects at a young age, but I didn't realise that the onset of one's middle age made drinking heavily so unbearable. What has been my friend for many years has now betrayed me at last. For now returning to making gourmet foods have been a distraction._

Certain days he found himself combing over news footage, news articles and extranet searches on Laurel Westfahl.

 _I cannot help but feel a certain curiosity towards the female human who accompanied us on our (failed) Blue Suns mission (I will talk about that later). I forget she was so young when the Incident occurred, and yet had only been in the human Alliance military for five years. What had made her parents abandon her so willingly?_

He found out details about her father, through some dodgy news website (one that was, he thought, extremely extremist in its views towards not only other species, but humans that did not 'fit' a certain quota). He was an Admiral in the Alliance military that'd been forced to retire early, due to a recurring 'knee' injury (he could only guess what part of the human body that was) that required extensive surgery. In other words, Marik thought, he was getting old and past his prime – at seventy-four, despite medical advances, the body was not ripe anymore for military combat and stress.

 _Her anger towards me was justified and it was to be expected. She anticipated an apology but I wouldn't lower myself so. I hated humans as much as they hated us – and at that time I wanted to punish her for killing so many of my soldiers. Everything I've read on the extranet tells me nothing more than what I already know. The photos of her during and after the trial are disturbing – she looks thin, haggard…much like she did when I first met her._

 _It is disconcerting to think that she indeed might be right – she pleaded guilty at her trial! But even if she is, there's no evidence to redeem her – several articles have reported that the Alliance had agents scouting the ruins of Shanxi for anything to tell them differently. If she's right, then the real culprit Jensen is cleverer and more insidious than he looks. He has planted evidence carefully and well._

 _Perhaps I was too harsh on her, but her lying (the 'amnesia') and easy deference was infuriating. She'd been very easy to break – and it seems she's still fragile. Her screams were not shocking, but her curious wailing on one night was. Yet I cannot judge my actions of eleven years ago, I was a different individual then. Many things have changed for me now._

After this latest entry, he found he was trying hard not to feel remorse. He knew that at the time one of his guards (he forgot the name) had a sadistic side, and had taken great pleasure in making her stop that snuffling, wailing sound. He'd never heard anything like it – but he could differentiate it from the yells of pain when they'd beaten her. It surprised him at the time how easy it was to break human skin and yet she'd felt supple and strong when she'd thumped him at the Inn. Her skin had felt so smooth, almost velvety during that same altercation. When he'd put his hand in her fringe (hair, he later found out) to lift her up and away from him, it made him almost shudder with the unexpected sensation. He wasn't sure what he'd been expecting – it didn't look hard, or particularly pliable. He'd never seen anything like it, not even 'fur' on other native species on his home planet.

When Marik first saw images of humans' years ago, he thought they were very curious looking indeed. Flat faces with high foreheads and lithe bodies. Round bulging eyes and protruding noses. Too many fingers on their hands. He wasn't sure where, but he'd come across an image of a human infant after a birth. It was strange to see that the infant had a neck that looked as if it couldn't support such a large head. After dwelling on this, he found himself researching human anatomy. He thought human customs and cultural taboos about their own bodies was strange, particularly about the female body. He deleted his history immediately, after becoming conscious of how much he was researching. In embarrassment, he turned back to the bottle. By the third week, he was becoming wary of making a public appearance, especially as he was entering and exiting the Presidium regularly. He did not want to bump into diplomatic officials or politicians, especially those whom he was employed under as a 'military advisor.' On a food-shopping trip during the third week, his old acquaintance Vuren approached him.

"Absedeus Marik," he said, opening his arms out. It looked like he was about to embrace Marik. He took a step back in return. Vuren hadn't changed in over a year, although the red marks on his face seemed more prominent.

"I heard you'd disappeared without notice," said Vuren. His eyes drifted briefly to Marik's cart; four bottles amongst a couple of ready meals.

"I'm here now, aren't I?" replied Marik, becoming quickly irritated with Vuren's staring. There was a short silence between them.

"A drink? On me of course," said Vuren to dispel the awkward silence.

Marik reluctantly agreed, not even finishing his shopping, having plonked the cart down on an empty shelf. Vuren chose Flux this time, which was popular among humans, asari and turians, who chose to mingle together more in this club. Pink, blue and green neon lit up Marik's tired face as they climbed the steps to the chrome bar, manned by a young-looking salarian and a bored asari. Marik purposely chose a non-alcoholic drink, questioning himself why he cared what Vuren thought. Vuren had already seen the bottles in his shopping cart.

"You don't have to stand on ceremony, you know," joked Vuren after placing their orders.

"It's something about this space station," answered Marik, glancing at the curvy shapes of the asari on the dance floor. "Formal, uptight…. Somehow those rigid social protocols come back to haunt you." Vuren laughed again, but he stopped shortly after seeing Marik did not respond. His long talons tapped the surface of the bar somewhat nervously.

"What happened, Deus? Where did you go? Does the embassy know?" Marik tried not to prickle at his former nickname being used so casually. Vuren, no matter how high he was in the military now, was insulting Marik because he was younger and more inexperienced compared to his elder. He always had a peculiar knack of trying to overshadow Marik – to overstep the boundaries with elders in turian society is seen as highly distasteful.

"Of course not. And I've no interest in telling them either. I don't want to go back to that job." Marik took a long slurp of his drink, but he winced at the sweetness of it.

"I can get you a job back on the Presidium," said Vuren.

"I don't want it," snapped Marik angrily. "You of all turians should know that I resent that job more than anything else." Vuren looked taken aback at this sudden aggression.

"Then why come back? There was talk of you…on Omega. With the Blue Suns," Vuren said, his voice lowering slightly. Marik stared straight ahead, fixing his gaze on an inane corner of the bar.

"I'm only offering you this because no one else will take you on," persisted Vuren, drawing closer in, close enough that Marik could feel the heat radiating from him. "You've tarnished your reputation beyond-"

"It was a mistake to return here," muttered Marik, barely listening to Vuren.

"Please don't confirm the rumours, Deus, please," said Vuren, turning away in his seat, erupting with a sigh. "What happened to you? And if the rumours are true, why the Suns, dammit? What made you come back here if you hated it so?" Marik was quiet for a moment, staring deep into his bright orange beverage.

"A woman," he answered, glancing at Vuren honestly. Vuren looked like he softened momentarily, his brow plates rising.

"A _woman_?"

"A human female…and no, it's not like that." The alcohol he'd drunk earlier had loosened his tongue on this subject more than he liked.

"I had her tortured during the incident. I remember my anger…"

"The human," began Vuren. "Who detonated a nuclear warhead?"

"Yes…she didn't confess anything, saying she suffered from amnesia. I realise now that she was telling the truth. A building had collapsed on her, bashing her head."

"I thought she was still rotting in prison," said Vuren, taking a large sip from his glass.

"No. Let out early for good behaviour. I read her trial details. She pleaded guilty. I don't understand why she did so."

"Why? Surely you don't think…?" said Vuren, his face morphing into brief disgust.

"She told me that it was another human…there was fear and pain in her as she confided in me. I only realise now, looking back, that I believe her. I didn't then."

"Because it brought up bad memories? It's no secret what happened with you, Deus." Vuren's voice had taken an unfriendly tone once again, as he stood back up. Marik glanced at his glass, which wasn't empty.

"If you don't like politics, what about C-Sec? I know a friend who is Chief there. I can get you a job. You can't retire at fifty-two." Marik gave an uncommitted half-nod, a signal good enough for Vuren. Before Vuren could turn away without giving him a formal farewell, he stood up and grabbed Vuren's arm roughly.

"Do not call me by my former name again," he hissed into the younger turian's enclosed-earhole. If he wanted, he could rip Vuren's arm off. "Despite your own opinions and those of the embassy, I am not below you disrespecting me in public." Vuren ripped his arm away unexpectedly in response. Marik barely moved an inch, but was surprised by it nonetheless.

"You deserve no more respect," spat Vuren, leaning into the elder turian's face. "Then the average weasel that works for the Blue Suns. Respect is earned, Marik. And you lost that title years ago."

He stormed away, leaving a few onlookers to stare curiously at Marik. He stood there awkwardly, his mind reeling and his blood beating hard against his skull. He'd never felt more insulted in his life. The title, General, had been officially rescinded three years ago. Instead of leaving the bar, he returned to his beverage and ordered an alcoholic one this time round. He didn't care if anyone recognised him. He spent the rest of the night there, watching the dancers absent-mindedly or the bartenders making the drinks. His mind drifted back to Westfahl. She'd always made his drink at the Moat-Zart bar perfectly. He wasn't sure how; the temperature, the one large ice cube or the shape of the glass. He thought of her misaligned fingers, taking the bottle and pouring it high and from an angle as it was meant to be poured. He suddenly pictured those soft fingers broken by turian boots and cringed at this. Marik drank until he could get the image of her out of his head, but he remembered the large marking on her back; the one with wings. The way her shoulder blades had moved under her skin, making those wings magically move. The animal had a hooked beak and haunting eyes.

Perhaps he was longing for her company because she, like him, was just as troubled and broken, having lost her way in their ultimately brief existence.


	27. Chapter 27

Anise Westfahl, or Anise Carter as she was now known, was tall and once curly-haired like her sister. Hers was now straight, and Laurel could probably imagine she had it permanently straightened. Anise wore a smart dress-suit, one that diplomats often wore, as was the fashion. She had friends in high places, including that of the high society on the Citadel, and found them a table at an elaborate gourmet restaurant on the Presidium. Laurel wasn't dressed for the occasion – sporting her usual oversized plaid shirt under a leather jacket. Her jeans were tattered and her boots were clumpy. She received disapproving looks from a few haughty-looking customers who were perhaps overdressed. Laurel now in her thirties didn't let things like this bother her anymore – it might've bothered her once when she was in her teens and early twenties. Even the waiter had given her a look that appeared he'd been sucking a lemon for the past hour. By the time Laurel had sat down, refusing the waiter's placing of the napkin on her lap, many people were looking at her. There was already bile stinging the back of her throat and she felt immediately exhausted. Anise was calmly and quietly studying the holo-menu on the glass table. The looks of the snooty people, coupled with the overly formal setting with the ridiculous menu set Laurel's teeth on edge.

"Why are we _here_ ?" she finally said. Anise fixed her with an impassive gaze. Laurel wished they were at a bar. She'd find it easier speaking to Anise if they weren't facing each other.

"I get a discount here," her sister replied with simplicity. Laurel raised an eyebrow.

"I forget what your title is. It's probably changed, right? I didn't know you married either."

"Diplomatic Interstellar-Alliance Consulate. I work at the embassy. I met Ian a couple of years ago. He works in shipping."

"Interstellar or…?"

"On Earth." The waiter returned and they ordered their drinks. Laurel ordered the plainest thing on the menu.

"How's Dad and Fern?" Fern was the youngest sister, now twenty-eight. Laurel hadn't seen her in nearly twelve years. She wondered if she'd become less affected and self-centered. Anise had lost whatever Laurel had known beforehand – she was now professional, distant, perhaps pedantic like their father.

"Barely coping, to be honest," was the reply. They fell silent as the waiter returned with their drinks. Laurel had ordered ale (again, the waiter's nose turned up), whereas Anise stuck with her usual red.

"What was it," said Laurel, immediately taking a sip after she said this. Anise looked confused for a moment, so Laurel clarified.

"What did Mum die from?" The words stung.

"A stroke," replied Anise. Laurel gauged Anise's expressions and manner for a moment. If anything, she suspected that what her sister had told her hadn't been entirely true.

"This wasn't just a few days ago, was it," said Laurel, taking another sip. Every time she asked a question she didn't want to hear an answer to, the bitterness of the ale seemed like the best antidote. Her chest ached, the blood in her veins thrumming to each of her digits, and her tongue pressed against the roof of her mouth. She was tired and there was no sting in her words.

"God, I'm so sorry Laurel," said Anise, putting her head in her hands. "It was two years ago." Bitterness quickly replaced sorrow.

"You didn't think to call me?" Where was she two years ago? _Mozarts, here on the Citadel_. "I was working at a bar here."

"We hadn't spoken for so long. I had no way of reaching you-"

"I doubt that," snapped Laurel, her voice raised enough to provoke more stares. Anise looked horribly uncomfortable, the visible lump in her throat moving up and down quickly.

"Look, I didn't bring you here to argue with you-"

"No, you brought me here because we just happened to bump into each other. You're just filling your 'the good sister' end of the bargain." Anise's face morphed into shock.

"Why must you be so insensitive? I want you to come _home_ …. It's time for you to come home," said Anise, leaning across the table. Laurel had trouble keeping the tears out of her eyes.

"Me? _Insensitive_ ? You and Dad made sure I was cut out of the picture for good. You didn't support me, question the trial, question why your sister would commit such a crime…"

"What was I supposed to do, Laurel? Dad cut you off before you joined the Alliance. You got kicked out of several schools, you were in trouble with the law so many times…"

"Yeah, that must've been _really_ embarrassing for Dad," said Laurel, slouching back in her chair, echoing that of her unruly teenage self. She played with her fork feeling like she wanted to stab it into the table. Anise ignored this, although she was aware they were being stared at now, and she was sure one of the male turians on her far right had got up to complain.

"You ever hear from Mum when I was away? She didn't visit me that often." Anise was looking at her hands that were on the table.

"Hardly. She told me that you were innocent," she replied. Laurel wasn't too surprised by her mother not contacting Anise or Fern that often. Despite their busy lives, Anise had never shown much interest in keeping contact with their mother. Their step-mother Emma, whom their Dad had married when Laurel was thirteen, had become the mother that both Anise and Fern related to – only because they were eight and four when their father remarried.

"That's because I _was_ ," hissed Laurel, tears freely falling out of eyes now. Why did she always feel like the uncontrollable, emotional rule-breaking wreck? Perhaps it was Anise who made her feel that way. Her expression was was stoic.

"It's your word against the overwhelming evidence, the testimonies of-"

"You know what, Anise, I'm not going to go back and coax Daddy into liking me. 'Oh Daddy! Forgive me for my sins!'" she mocked, standing up. Anise stood up too, her face still impassive. She appeared suddenly small under the harsh light of the restaurant.

"Wait, Laurel, please…I'm sorry," she pleaded. "I didn't want it to go this way."

"Then how did you want it to go?" asked Laurel. Her tears had dried up. The waiter intervened, touching Anise's arm lightly.

"Ms. Carter, is everything alright?" Anise nodded, and the waiter retreated, but she seemed hesitant on her final answer.

"I'm number 234 on the south-facing street on Meldera Ward," said Laurel reciting her home address. "Come find me when you've got an answer." Despite the stares, she walked out of the restaurant confident, until she returned home. In the lonely silence of her apartment, the news of her mother's death - her mum, her wonderful, precious mum - hit her fully.

* * *

 **2170 - Six months later**

The blue screen in front had been glaring at him for too long. The enforcement side of C-Sec that he'd been working in for the last six months had now bored him beyond misery. He'd offered at first to do the most mundane of jobs – what the human officers termed 'paperwork' but after a month he quickly became distracted and jaded. Vuren had recommended the lighter side of the job as a way to ease him, as he received treatment for his addiction. As he sat there thinking, the blue screen highlighting his weary features, he mused on the only good thing about C-Sec - he was no longer an alcoholic. At first he was resentful about giving it up, and directed mainly at Vuren – who in the end secured his employment with C-Sec and his reputation with the Council, the Turian Embassy and the Hierarchy back home.

Vuren had more reach and influence than Marik realised. Vuren covered Marik's absence with a story about an illness – helpfully 'supported' by the doctor who treated his addiction. His addiction was not something heard or talked about much in his culture, and if it were, he'd be disgraced beyond a means of saving his reputation. It had been unbelievably hard for the first couple of months – and it was still hard now. Shopping proved difficult as well – why did alcohol suddenly seem so prevalent? The amount of calls he had dealing with altercations at seedy bars did make him see it all in a different light. But he knew why they were drinking it – it seemed to affect turians, humans, and asari more than any other race.

He did not have much contact with his previous employers – the Council and the turian military, who were more than willing to believe his illness story. They did not question the sudden absence, the lack of communication, the leave of office for over a year. But he knew that to question him about his illness would more than likely shame him – as a once decorated military general, such matters that would be traditionally seen as 'weakness' was an unfavourable topic for conversation. Vuren had done much for him in these last few months – more than he could've hoped for. Recently Vuren had started to treat him as if Marik owed him something. This was mostly passive aggressive comments by subtly patronising him in conversation. 'Cured' of his alcohol addiction, Marik returned to routine and purpose yet there was something distinctly lacking. Now that alcohol was not an option, and he had settled into his new job, the memories of his past began to slowly haunt him, starting with his dreams.

* * *

"There's been a break-in and assault at the human embassy office," said Marik's younger C-Sec partner, shrugging on her outer-coat. Marik's eyes flicked towards the digital clock embedded in the wall. Eleven-forty pm, it said in neon blue. _Finally_ , were his thoughts as he took the skycar with his colleague, Pavra.

"Details," said Marik as he weaved through the busy traffic. The Citadel never slept, as blurry images of white lights interspersed with neon blues, reds, and purples flashed by.

"Break-in approx. thirty minutes ago. Power was cut so nothing on the cameras. A few members of staff were working late, two of them were injured in the scuffle."

"What staff were these?" asked Marik.

"Former is a security guard, latter is human diplomat Anise Carter. Official title is Diplomatic Interstellar-Alliance Consulate. She works closely with the Council in forming treaties in Alliance relationships with other races. Quite a prominent spokesperson for such treaties." When they reached the office on the Presidium ten minutes later, Marik was surprised to see the diplomat pacing back and forth.

"You're the C-Sec officers?" she asked as soon as the door bleeped open.

"Yes, m'am. Officer Absedeus Marik and this is my colleague Officer Pavra Antias," Marik replied, taking out a stylus and a holopad. "The EMT's are here?"

"A minute before you. Out back. I'm Anise Carter. I was working late when I heard a gunshot. I knew Erne was out back, getting a coffee. I heard him yell but the assailant had probably silenced him because I didn't hear anything. I pressed security but no one arrived immediately like they should have." He saw she had blood all over her face and her hands. He then spotted blood and bits of shattered glass on the grey-white woven carpet. Where did the glass come from? His eyes drifted round the room briefly as the woman continued to babble continuously. Coffee table. Carter still paced as she talked and gesticulated, but he could see she was obviously shaken.

"Ms. Carter, please sit down, you're stunned from this. It'll help," said Pavra unwisely. Carter whipped her head round to stare at his younger counterpart.

"No I will not 'sit down'!" she snapped, folding her arms. "God…I'm gonna have to notify my lawyer…"

"No one will be called until I have every _single_ detail from this break-in and assault," said Marik, his voice drowning out those of Carter's. Carter straightened a little, the tendons in her neck becoming pronounced as she swallowed – he had known humans long enough to tell when their expressions showed complacence or fear.

"The figure was so fast I could barely react," she began, taking in a huge breath. "They were obviously human – or asari, because they were definitely female. She was dressed head to toe in black and I could only see her eyes – she had a mask on. She grabbed me when I stood up, hit me in the face, broke my nose and threw me across the room, where I landed on the coffee table. While I struggled to get back up, I saw her at my terminal. She was extracting information – it took about two minutes." Carter pointed a bloody finger at the remains of what was her computer.

"She broke my terminal. All my work just _gone_ …" Marik's brow plates crossed together in concern as he noted the details down quickly on his pad. Carter decided to take Pavra's offer of a seat. He quickly glanced at her back – covered in shards of glass and soaked with blood. She was wearing a long dress typical of Citadel fashion. "Only one EMT here?" he asked her, baffled she wasn't being treated.

"No, two, but Erne went into cardiac arrest before they got here," she told them.

"Ms. Carter I know you're in shock but I need you to come with us to make a statement as soon as possible. After you are treated for your injuries of course," began Marik. "I also need to know what work you have been conducting of late, events, important meetings, etc."

"I'll tell that to a higher official, thanks," she said.

"I may be of a lower rank in C-Sec but I was a member of the military and an advisor to the Council," he tried to say without anger. He saw she appeared somewhat mortified but her pride had won over and she said nothing further. He investigated the rest of the building, notably the entrance point of the perpetrator while the medics treated Carter's injuries. His real concern was for the stolen information – this had turned from a simple break-in to a situation with potential political ramifications. While Carter returned home, they gathered what evidence they could find from the site of the crime.

Carter rejected offers of returning home to sleep – she wanted the statement over and done with immediately. She also rejected them calling her husband and said she'd call her sister instead. Marik was surprised by this – was there something she didn't want her husband to know? He returned to the station, somewhat uneasy at the strange events. Nothing major (or even that interesting) had happened since he'd started working for C-Sec. He would have to question what possible information she had on there that would warrant a break-in and an assault. Less than an hour later, Anise and her sister turned up. Anise had changed into something more casual but her face was still ashen from the ordeal. Behind her was her sister. The face of this sister regarded Marik with at first indifference, but her face then morphed into one of slight disbelief in a matter of seconds. Westfahl.

"Marik?" she said, her eyes wide. Fate had once brought them together.

* * *

He kept professional, despite the now raging headache that thrummed behind his eyes. The statement recorder's bright red light was making it worse.

"What kind of information was stored on your terminal?" he asked her. Carter's face morphed into that of anger.

"I was told to give a statement," she snapped. In response he stopped the recording quickly, irritably flicking the button off. "Surely this crime warrants a detective asking such questions and not an officer?"

"M'am, a statement is evidence that is used in court. This is vital to finding out the attacker's motivation," he tried.

He knew she was right but he since he'd joined C-Sec he couldn't help but probe further than his job title allowed – which left him not only with shame but frustration. Carter's face was remarkably similar to that of her sister's. Then again, Marik assumed that most humans looked the same, save for the colour of their hair or skin. They also had a remarkable range of body sizes – how did the skin stretch, shrink or become defined to accommodate such sizes? He didn't press her further. Once finished with the statement, Carter had photographs and fingerprints taken by another specialist officer. Westfahl was still in the waiting room. He found himself making two hot drinks instead of one. When he re-entered the waiting room, he saw her slouched on one of the chairs, her chin in hand. She was wearing blue pants, a brown jacket and a cream scarf wrapped her neck. Her bushy hair was escaping the confines of its bun and her skin was browned, much to his surprise.

"Funny how life seems to find a way for us to meet again," he said, handing her the hot drink. To his surprise, she did not react as before, taking the cup of 'tea' and thanking him for it. She winced at the taste as she took a sip.

"Sorry. Standard turian built hot-drink machines are not great. Not for humans anyway."

"Not that great. Not surprising though, considering most of your force is turian," she replied. There was a pause between them, and he took the seat next to her. They were still a respectable distance apart.

"Can you speculate much about the attack?" she asked.

"Not yet. But I think it will have some sort of political consequence. Your sister is an important diplomat in keeping good relations between races. The attacker stole information," he said. Westfahl's face looked deep in thought as she half-gazed at a mundane notice about the cleanliness of the toilets on the wall opposite.

"Have you heard?" she finally said, turning to look at him properly. It hadn't escaped his attention that she had been avoiding his eyes since he'd stepped into the room.

"No. I'm attempting to keep a low profile. Fortunately people like them don't like to frequent the Citadel very often. But one doesn't, ah, quit a merc group so…"

"Quickly?" she finished for him. Perhaps, he thought, that being pleasant to one another was more difficult for her.

"I'm more worried about Jensen," she continued. "He's one for revenge."

"C-Sec can provide protect-" He stopped himself. _What was he thinking?_ She smirked at him briefly, soon lost within a moment.

"I'm not planning to stay here for much longer. My Dad is sick and my youngest sister can't look after him anymore."

"Sorry to hear that," said Marik, his voice sounding robotic to his ears. He was quiet a moment before speaking again.

"For a parent that disowned you…. Why do you feel forced to help him? Does he not have a carer or a doctor?" Her face contorted slightly.

"He's my father," she snapped. "He did have carers, but he's a stubborn bastard and had them sacked eventually. Besides, I'm using it as an excuse mainly to get back to Earth." Sometimes it felt like walking on ice with her – but maybe she had felt this with him when he'd still been with the bottle. With his head clearer he could see and notice things he hadn't before. He realised only now that his previous treatment of her had been beyond reproach. That was, his treatment of her after the Incident. His feelings on the 'war' as the humans termed it were non-existent, and he'd made it absolutely sure they were to stay there.

"Are you moving back there?" he asked, trying to dispel the sudden poisoned air.

"I don't know," she replied, taking another sip of her drink. Carter eventually came back through, delivering him an icy stare. In an instant, he could see although they were siblings, they had nothing in common with each other. Westfahl paused stiffly at the door, glancing at him.

"Thanks…. and bye." Carter, who was in front, looked impatient as she stood outside in the ward corridor folding and un-folding her arms.

"Take care," he said, before he could think properly. She walked out without looking back. Marik began to file the report after he'd finished, when one of the more senior detectives walked in. One of his mandibles looked liked they had been broken once or twice, and he stood slightly slouched as if in pain.

"Marik," he greeted. Even though he wasn't, this senior detective liked to think he was in charge and of higher rank than Marik.

"Before you begin to dig deeper into a case that is beyond someone of your current rank…I'll ask you to hand it over to me."

"Doesn't require a senior detective, this isn't homicide," Marik said testily. "I'm filing the reports and data. Surely that's a menial task for someone of 'your rank'." The other turian's eyes narrowed.

"You've been told several times, Marik, not to go beyond your station. As this a more serious matter, I trust you to leave it in my hands. This is your final warning." With that, the detective turned away to leave the room. Marik's fingers felt a peculiar ache as he paused them over the terminal's touchpad. He caught his weary-looking face in the reflection of the screen that had now dimmed. _What am I doing here_ , his eyes seemed to say in his reflection. _Ten years ago you'd be horrified at the prospect of bending the rules, especially in a position such as C-Sec Officer_. He moved himself away from the desk, giving in to it just like he'd been doing for all his life.

* * *

The wards as usual were blustering with noise and bright light, but Laurel's head was full of cell biology and genetics. It followed her all the way back to her tiny little apartment, the one she still rented after a year or so now. P _rokaryote and Eukaryote cells_ , she thought. _Structures of major organelle systems: the nucleus, the secretory vacuolar system, mitochondria_ …. _I can't get my head around this_. As she made a bowl of warming ramen, Laurel realised that perhaps trying to understand this sort of science was beyond her. Maybe she was trying too hard – making up for all the lost time. The television blared the usual Citadel Ward news behind her; same shit different day. She spooned the contents into her ceramic bowl and curled up on the beanbag in front of the television. She watched the news about her sister, but her mind drifted back to the biology. I'm not a scientist. I'm not the studying type. During her years in prison she had taught herself how to become mindful, steady herself in the present moment. Yet curled on this beanbag she felt twenty instead of thirty-six. _You're doing it for Mum. You're doing it for the birds. You're doing it because you want to go home_. But it felt hard to equate mitochondria with her mum's laughing face and home.

Around two in the morning she heard a crash. Laurel propelled herself out of bed, heart racing. A figure was in the kitchen. She had nothing by her bed to defend herself. It must've taken quite a bit for the intruder to wake her up because half the apartment had already been trashed. The television broken and scattered into tiny shards on the floor. Her potted plants smashed, their soil already being trampled into the carpet. Her hand was too far from the kitchen to grab one of the knives. She didn't see the rest of the mess, but tried to tackle the cloaked figure to the ground. They were definitely human, and too lithe to be a man. They struggled for various moments, Laurel attempting to press the woman to the ground, the woman trying to push Laurel off her waist.

"Who are you? Why'd you trash my place?" Laurel spat. The woman's arms finally became free and pressed the pads of her thumbs into her offender's eyes. Laurel screamed in shock, falling back slightly. This gave the intruder enough time to hit her hard around the face, and kick her to the floor. Before Laurel could get up, the intruder dealt her another couple of blows to the face and then the abdomen.

* * *

She had a witness, thank Christ. Not everyone was out to get her, which did surprise her a little. Laurel sat in the waiting room of the C-Sec station. Bright lights once more, but this time she didn't ignore it. There was blood on the blue of her jeans and the pads of her hands. It was three-forty in the morning. She had called the police immediately after the break-in. She was told to come to the station straight away. In her shock she hadn't thought to clean herself up. Her hands were shaking. _You used to live on Omega. You sold drugs. You nearly had a fight on the streets every day – in self-defense of course. What's softened you? Girl the fuck up._ The door bleeped open and the turian she'd almost come to know so well walked through, his cowl looking like it had just scraped the top of the doorframe.

"Hey," she croaked. "It's my oh-so favourite turian." Sarcasm, at this time? His expression was extremely hard to read, more so than usual this time. Usually she interpreted it as cold disdain, superiority or bewilderment.

"Is there ever a normal day for you, Laurel Westfahl?" he said, coming closer towards her.

"No I just need excuses to get out," she said, craning her neck to look up at him, squinting her eyes. His mandibles widened in what appeared to be amusement. They both fell silent. She could feel her entire body tremble.

"I can take a few details down. You don't have to take the statement now. You should rest," he said to her. "We have a sofa-bed out back."

"That's possibly the nicest thing you've ever said to me," she replied, looking up at him again. His yellow eyes felt penetrating, wandering over the inches of skin on her face, occasionally moving to her mouth. That probably meant something different to turians, she thought.

"Do you want a drink? Change of clothes?" he said, ignoring her previous sarcasm. This made her uncomfortable.

"Stop being my mother," she snapped, standing up. "I'll do the damn statement, and return home." He held his talons up to stop her from storming off.

"It's nearly four in the morning," he assured her. Agitated she thrust her hands into her bushy hair and began pacing, feeling the weight of his presence unbearable.

"I'm returning home now. Fuck waiting around," she said. Her voice was getting higher.

"Not safe at the moment. You'll be disturbing the site of evidence as well," he said, somewhat unhelpfully, watching as she paced like a lunatic.

"Fine," she spat. "I'll stay here until I can do the fucking statement. Then I'm going home. Hopefully I won't have to see your foul turian face again." He looked like he was offended by her comment – much to her astonishment – and walked back towards the door silently.

"Bathroom's on the left," he said while leaving, without looking back at her.

* * *

Marik spent the rest of his night shift tense and fed-up. He didn't know whether she'd gone to clean up, but he knew she had at least stayed. He knew she was pathetic, but not stupid. If he'd still been with the alcohol, he would've had to seriously restrain himself and not feel the urge to hit her. It had come to his mind. The breadth and depth of human emotions were still unfamiliar to him, but in the time since he'd known her she'd become even more unreadable, and emotionally unstable. What was even more disconcerting was that he'd felt a stab of hurt at being so openly insulted. How hypocritical of her. The more he thought of it, the more the old feelings and hostilities returned.

The more he wanted to have a drink. His racing thoughts at this point didn't shock him, even if he was at work. Yet it was quiet. Foul. He'd shown courtesy and kindness to her recently. Why was she still so bitter towards him? Didn't the bitch know that during a war things are different? That to him she'd killed half a dozen of his men? That _weight_ he'd had to carry on his shoulders for so long now. Because although it wasn't his fault, it was simultaneously. It was about winning. Failure is not tolerated, not in a war. His eyes blurred as he stared at the screen. He'd ordered her torture but he'd never been the one to inflict it on her. Marik felt himself sweat. He'd been doing so well, yet all he wanted after these months of progress was a goddamn drink. _Her fault._ He shook his head, stood up and walked to the staff room to get a glass of cool water. _What am I thinking. Pull yourself together._

* * *

Westfahl looked tired the next morning, her clothes and hair ruffled. She'd taken off her rumpled scarf she'd worn yesterday to reveal a plaid shirt underneath her jacket. Marik hadn't slept particularly well last night either, perhaps disturbed by his thoughts of returning to the bottle. He saw her skin was a purple-blue circling her eyes. Much to his amazement, they'd already conducted an investigation. They'd found a tiny portion of evidence. Pavra stood by him when Laurel was asked to enter the main office.

"I'd advise against returning to your apartment, Ms. Westfahl," Pavra began. "The person who broke into your home was the same who did so at the human embassy office the other night. We found a smidge of evidence – human blood – on the carpet of your sitting area." Marik watched Laurel's face carefully.

"I don't believe it," was all she said at first. "Why attack me?"

"There's not much to go on at the moment unfortunately," Marik said. "But the attack looks to be politically motivated. Do you know anything about your sister's work?" Her face crumpled in what looked to be brief annoyance.

"I haven't seen her for years ," she snapped. "I don't anything about what she does. Maybe you should question her husband?" Pavra stole a glance at him. _It's like walking on ice with this human_ , her gaze seemed to say.

"We don't have facilities adequate to house you for the time being," she began. "I wouldn't recommend applying to a shelter. Too many nasty incidents have happened to humans."

"This is ridiculous," Laurel said, running a hand through her coiled hair. "I don't have anything on me. I can't afford a hotel at the moment, not when I'm saving for a flight off-world."

"From your statement and your sister's, the assailant attempted to kill you," said Pavra. He could sense his associate becoming impatient. Being young and headstrong she was often prone to a short fuse. "I'd recommend a hotel, under C-Sec surveillance. It's not safe to go back to your apartment." Westfahl heaved a frustrated sigh, turning away and crossing her arms.

"We can send an officer with you to collect your belongings," offered Pavra again. Marik held his hand up gently, trying to quell Pavra's temper while Laurel's back was turned.

"I'll come with you," said Marik to her back, making her turn around, face softened. "My apartment is also big enough – and safe. I have a spare room." At this she stiffened considerably.

"I…" she began. Pavra cut her off.

"I'd take the offer," she said. "It would save you money for your flight." He noticed her skin at the base of her throat flushed a rather endearing shade of pink.

"Fine," she snapped. He swallowed painfully. _What have I got myself into?_

* * *

Another officer went with her to collect her belongings, but she met him back at the station, a large duffel bag on her shoulder. Stiff as a pole, he greeted her somewhat awkwardly and they went in his skycar back to his apartment. She looked surprised at the fact he owned a skycar, but even more so that his home was in the Presidium. He made sure to keep quiet, trying not to regret his offer, trying not to curse the hospitable, gentleman side of him that ran in his family. She was astonished upon seeing his apartment, however.

"It's huge," she gaped as soon as they got in, him tossing his keys onto the sideboard.

"And well-furnished." Walking ahead, he gestured to the stairs, his posture stiff once more.

"Washing room is upstairs, first left. The spare room is through here on the right," he said. He lead her down a long, large corridor where at the end was a spacious kitchen. Leading her past the kitchen, he opened the door to a small, simple-looking room. Marik had felt confident at first, but he suddenly found himself feeling completely tongue-tied with her. He never had a human in his home before. Since he'd given up the bottle his mind was more rational – but in this moment he felt downright irrational. He saw her staring at the bed, shifting uncomfortably.

"You can use the cushions from the couch," he said. "We, er, don't use headrests as such-"

"I can see that," she replied, still looking at the bed. "There's a bloody hole at the top." Putting her duffel bag on the floor – in the middle of the doorway – she sat on the mattress, testing it.

"Not the squishy type," she grinned a little, bouncing a bit. She seemed to stop herself quickly, almost horrified she was being friendly with him. "You know what I might use your couch instead." He felt astonished. _The couch?_ Taking her bag again she walked back into the kitchen. It was open-plan, with the living area on the left-hand side. Huge windows looked out onto the beautiful green spaces of the Presidium. He saw her bag now on the couch.

"Being a general paid you well, huh," she said, gazing at the view.

"I don't spend much time here," he admitted.

"Wow, I've lived in dumps and always spent time there. You must be mad not to." There was a brief silence. He desperately felt like a drink, or _something_.

"What do you eat? I have nothing here fit for human consumption," he asked. She finally turned her gaze away from the view.

"I'm not eating with you," she said. "That's just…odd. I'll go out." He suddenly felt irritated with her hostility.

"I'm your host . In my culture, it is highly offensive to refuse such an offer," he snapped. "Besides, I thought you were too broke. Otherwise you can just go to a hotel." Laurel looked like she was holding back her next insult, but she bit her lip and looked away. A few minutes later, she tells him 'pasta with tomato sauce' or ramen, and he tapped it into his omni tool. He told her where the television was, and promptly left.


	28. Chapter 28

It was spartan, and didn't have much of a personal touch to it. He said he was going out – probably to get her food, so she took a chance to wander. It felt strange, unnatural even, to be in his home although she was secretly glad he didn't have much to garnish it with. There were no photographs, no decorations, nothing remotely warm or comfy about the place. It was an ice block. Even the armchairs and couch looked positively rock-hard. Laurel moved her bag back to the spare room, regretting she'd refused his offer of the spare room – for heaven's sake she needed privacy! The view was incredible – perhaps the only thing she admired about his apartment. For years on end she'd lived in places with no windows – from prison to her dingy apartment on the Citadel Wards to Omega.

The sky was quite unbelievably blue, but if she stared hard at it, she felt like she was home, if only briefly. Laurel found herself wandering upstairs, curious enough. She was desperately hoping he had a bathtub. One of the rooms was probably his bedroom – which she avoided. _Would it be as plain as everything else?_ Thankfully she found the bathroom – as spacious as everything else in the apartment. The bathtub wasn't a tub, more like an inbuilt pool in the middle of the room but it was perfectly sized. She was rootling through his cupboards when she heard the front door downstairs open. Startled, she ended up banging her hand on the shelf she was searching through and knocked a glass jar to the floor.

"Shit," she cursed, seeing the jar had broken into half a dozen fragments. "For fuck's sake…Why does the bloody thing have to break into a bazillion pieces?" He was suddenly by the door.

"Your language hasn't improved, has it?" Marik said, his mandibles spread wide, showing her that he was possibly amused. Laurel couldn't help but shriek in response as soon as he'd spoken – he'd come up those stairs so silently.

"I'm s-sorry," she muttered, trying to sweep up the remains of whatever she'd broken. He nodded his head towards the kitchen. _I feel like a goddamn schoolgirl,_ she thought.

"I will clean it up later. You need to see what I've got you for dinner." His words made her wince with apprehension – this was a turian, who once had her tortured. A turian who was her enemy during the war…and she was now in his apartment after what seemed like a series of considerable coincidences. Why was life so intent on pulling her back towards him?

"Your choice seemed rather bland so I found something along the same lines but different," he said when they went back down to the kitchen. "Stroganoff, but a variation of the original recipe as I found. This is with the pasta 'tagliatelle' and mushroom. Have you cooked this before?" Marik told her, as she looked at what was spread on the kitchen counters.

"I, um, no," she said, speechless. He'd bought all the ingredients. _The garlic, the butter, the salt and pepper, the stock…._

"Do you like the ingredients?" he said. She didn't fail to notice that he seemed in his element, having lost that previous awkwardness.

"Er, yes, it sounds delicious," she stammered. He drew his gaze onto her properly this time.

"Are you being frank with me?" he asked her, his tone changing slightly. "Because I will not cook it if you will not eat it."

"I just…I don't cook. I mostly eat take-out or go out to eat. Or if I do it's frozen and not fresh." He looked aghast at her comment.

"Maybe that will change," he said, more softly this time, sensing her uneasiness.

She fidgeted and faffed while he cooked their respective dinners, side by side on the large electric hob. Whatever he was cooking for himself smelt delicious. It mixed with the smells of her own cooking, so much that it had her drooling and feeling faint with hunger by the time he'd finished. She nearly moved to the couch to eat her dinner, but saw he'd set the table up. Laurel was so hungry she could forget her discomfort, although it was still unnerving to be sat opposite him while eating. She occasionally saw him look up to watch her eat – probably more interested to see her approval of his cooking – rather than watching how a human masticates. She knew she was unladylike – elbows on the table, stuffing her mouth full, her mouth occasionally open while chewing.

"Probably the best meal I've had in a while," she said, her mouth full. She was just desperate to break the silence. His own food, the smell mixed with hers, smelt pleasant, but didn't look very pleasant. She thought she saw a hint of a smirk on his face.

"You don't have to lay it on thick," he said.

"No, I mean it. I eat nothing but noodle soup or takeaway," she smiled.

* * *

The first night she was restless, which was to be expected. In a turian's apartment, in his spare room's bed. The sheets, too thin for her liking, smelt strange and unwelcoming. Unlike her own place, his apartment was eerily quiet, the walls thick enough to block out the Citadel traffic. But then she remembered they were in the Presidium. It was also unbearably warm for her, and she'd soaked the bed's sheets when she woke halfway through the night. She'd gone to bed before him, and hadn't changed out of her cargo pants and camisole. What was she afraid of? She didn't know. Even lighting the room and trying to read didn't put her mind at rest. Laurel ended up in the living room, the television on mute. Some inane asari film. Usually if she failed to sleep, reading or drinking tea would help. She found herself pouring through his kitchen cupboards, coming away with nothing but envy. Just how did it make sense that he was exceptionally good at cooking? She'd even held off going to the bathroom until it became near unbearable.

By the morning, he'd found her sprawled across the couch. Her eyes flickered open when she heard him creak across the floorboards, and nearly jumped out of her skin when she saw him holding a hot drink.

"Good morning," he greeted her, taking a sip of his drink. There was dried drool on the side of her cheek and an ache behind her eyes.

"Hi," she grumbled in reply, wiping sleep from her eyes roughly. While she attempted to wake herself up he placed a mug on the coffee table in front of where she sat.

"What is that?" she said upon seeing it. He settled himself down on the armchair opposite her. He was wearing some sort of dressing gown, and she could see the bare, defined muscles of his lower legs and part of his upper chest. His talons were also uncovered. She didn't think she'd see this much of turian skin beforehand.

"You're welcome," he said, taking another sip of his drink. "And it's tea. The leafy substance you humans like to drink copious amounts of." This almost made her laugh.

"What are you drinking?" she asked him. He pondered for a moment.

"Something similar to your coffee. It wakes me up." She pulled a tight little smile and sipped her tea, hoping it was awful. _Bloody delicious, like warm honey and ginger soothing my throat_. _Damn him._

"What do you usually do in the morning?" he asked her. She found this an odd question.

"I, um, sleep. Most of my shifts are late night." A headache was beginning to develop in the crest of her skull, a tender, slow ache that threatened to turn into a migraine. She knew she probably looked awful; rings under her eyes, sweat-soaked clothes and hair probably the size of a raven's nest.

"I normally buy the groceries in the morning before work," he said to her. "Would you like breakfast?"

"I don't normally have breakfast," she admitted. Why was he so unnerving with his questions? Laurel had never seen or heard him this polite. He looked positively shocked at her response, however.

"If you are to work today you need breakfast," he said, already taking out a frying pan. While he made her breakfast, she quickly showered. It felt strange to be stripping off and standing in his large shower cubicle, letting the hot water drizzle down her body. His towels were surprisingly fluffy and warm as she took one off the rack. Slipping on a fresh plaid shirt and cargo pants, she moved back downstairs to the smell of something glorious. Her hair was damp and wet the shoulders of her shirt, and the hot air of the apartment coupled with her earlier shower made her cheeks sing with heat.

"Protein scramble," he said, putting her plate of food onto the island counter in his kitchen. It smelt incredible – and tasted even better.

"Thanks," she said after she'd finished the meal. He gave her a small nod. He was dressed in his C-Sec uniform, the dressing gown now gone.

"I might call in sick to work today," Laurel told him sheepishly when they had finished tidying in silence. She did this quite often, not feeling guilty about it in the slightest. Yet mentioning it in front of Marik made her feel cheap and foolish.

"A good idea. You do seem unwell," he said, pausing in front of the entrance door. His tone was unreadable.

"When will it be safe to return to my apartment?" she asked. "I appreciate you offering me a night's sleep here, but I don't want to burden you. Besides, I've just…I've got other things to do." Laurel avoided meeting his eyes during the last part of the sentence, feeling like she couldn't. His yellow-eyed gaze had always seemed so penetrating, as if he could read her thoughts.

"You are hardly a burden. As you can see the flat is spacious enough and I'll be at work until this evening. It's not advisable to return for another day or so."

His tone had been less friendly this time round. With that, he left without saying goodbye to her. She didn't know what to make of him – or, indeed, this situation. After the shower and hearty breakfast, she did seem to feel better. It felt extremely strange to be in his apartment while he wasn't there. She dived into her duffel bag to take out her studying but her mind wandered too far. She ended up investigating his house, fingering the various art displays on the wall (probably expensive) thinking it was the only decorative thing in the place. She daringly peered into his bedroom, feeling intrusive but unable to stop herself. His large bed took up most of the room, but the large windows faced onto the greenery of the Presidium.

Laurel walked further, hoping to see some semblance of personality, but all she can see are the neat straight lines of the wall, his bed, and the neatly aligned sheets. A small data-pad was on his bedside table, but no mugs. No piles of clothes on the floor or pieces of paper littered, no hairdryers to trip you up or empty ready-meal packets to groan at. What she could see however, was a very lonely man. It seemed with his alcoholism gone and his job with C-Sec his life had recently picked up since the last time she saw him – perhaps the lack of alcohol explained his more pleasant manners. As lonely as she, with her ruined life, her lack of friends or family. The only friends she'd made had left or moved on. Her eyes moved back to his bed, thinking it was too large for just one person. Did he ever have somebody? Did turians marry? Whoever might've shared that bed was probably more put together than she could ever be.

* * *

Pavra had this annoying smirk that she wouldn't get rid of all day.

"Fancy you inviting that snot-nosed human to your place. You cook her a meal?" Marik was sat at his desk, reading up on the human embassy break-in.

"Two meals, actually," he replied, trying to keep any emotion out of his tone. "She admits she's hopeless at cooking, and I one-hundred percent believe her." Pavra sat on the desk next to him, which nearly made him shudder with disapproval. He did not like her soft, somewhat relaxed attitude in this place at the best of times. She peered at him inquisitively.

"Or you couldn't wait to cook her that meal! You haven't had a woman in…? How long now?" Pavra teased him. He had to give her some credit. Unlike everyone else, she wasn't deterred by his title, rank or stern nature.

"A long time," he finished for her. "But this isn't a woman, this is a human, Pavra." He tried typing up additional notes for the case, desperately hoping his partner would eventually leave him be today.

"A human woman, Marik! I'm surprised, to be honest. It was no secret that you, like most of the others up high, hated humans."

"It was our business to be wary and distrustful of humans, and it would do you well to keep it up. Especially since organisations like Cerberus have begun to rear their ugly heads," he snapped, becoming irritable now. Pavra was headstrong, but she was also young and unformed. Being pleasant enough to humans was fine, but to be overly friendly? To enter, as she was implying, a relationship was utterly unthinkable. Not to mention disgraceful.

"I don't think you believe that anymore," Pavra said, getting up from the desk. She left the room before he could retort. When the day ended, he felt the usual ache at the back of his cowl and in his joints. Stern years of military training, as well as war, had worn him significantly. Engrossed in his thoughts as he walked up to his skycar, he didn't notice a figure approach him.

"General Marik, sir." Marik nearly jumped. Judging by his uniform, it looked like this turian was a member of the military, nearly as high as he'd been. The turian saluted him, much to his surprise.

"What brings you here, Commander-?"

"Isarian, sir. A military dinner. You have been formally invited." Marik couldn't help but inwardly sigh. It had been a long time since he'd been to one of these, but back in the day they were as stiff, boring and drab each rare time he'd been to one. Turians were not one for frivolous celebration, especially military at that, but when they did happen it was an offence to refuse such an invitation. These events were also either overdone or underdone. Marik looked at the invitation on his omni-tool after Isarian had left. Next week. An opera. Great. He'd have to rent formal wear for this.

* * *

She was curled up on his armchair, faced away from him when he got home. This surprised him; he presumed she would be out doing something in order to avoid him. The apartment felt cold to him – she must've found someway to turn the heating off. _How…devious of her_. Humans weren't tall like turians but they were tall enough, and he found it somewhat fascinating she could curl her legs under her like that all on one chair. She had a large sweater on, one that covered her hands as she was holding something large, rectangular and heavy looking in her hands. He saw illustrations, of a species he presumed might be native to Earth. Such illustrations with their careful lines and swirling patterns of colour and delicacy; _how talented these humans can be_. He couldn't imagine humans creating such painstaking work with their own hands, not without the use of a machine at least. These creatures had large, spread and fingered wings.

"Good evening," he said. She flinched, having not heard him come in.

"Oh, er, hi," she replied, slapping her tome shut.

"I thought you'd be out," he said. "I understand you study?" Her large eyes were wide and somewhat thoughtful as she gazed at him.

"How'd you know I was studying?" she queried. He paused and moved to make a drink, indicating whether she'd like one too. Her nod was small.

"Your C-Sec record," he replied, pouring the drinks out and handing one glass to her.

"Oh, yeah. I don't know if I'm gonna…continue with it," she said, somewhat sheepishly. He felt surprised.

"Why?" he asked. Laurel paused for a moment, looking upwards in thought. It looked like she was trying to find the right words.

"It's not…. Well, it's not me," she said.

"You're struggling with the work?"

"Yes, and no. It's…I don't know how to explain it to you, it's complicated." He perhaps thought that maybe it was, or maybe she was touching on something painful and didn't want to talk about it. She took a sip of the tea he made for her and closed her eyes.

"I want to work…as a scientist back on Earth," she told him. Perhaps the warm tea changed her mind. She looked so comfortable in his armchair, with her legs curled up under her. Her coiled hair had grown since he'd last seen her, reaching her shoulders.

"You don't have the qualifications?" He moved to sit down opposite her on the couch. "I thought as a tech in the Alliance you'd have certain qualifications."

"Engineering? God no. Biology is what I'm learning," she said, pulling her lips into a smile. He'd realised as he watched her that she'd hardly ever smiled – not in front of him anyway.

"I see," he said. "So you don't have aspirations to become a doctor?"

"No," Laurel replied. "I want to be an ornithologist." He didn't know the term and she seemed keen to explain anyway.

"I'm studying animal biology. Ornithology is a branch of zoology that studies birds."

"The species in your illustrated book?" he said, pointing to the heavy tome on her lap, meeting her sudden concentrated gaze.

"Actually, your own species have a lot in common with the avian species on Earth. It's like your species had the dinosaurs, but instead of adapting into modern birds the archaeopteryx morphed into the turian," she said, sudden excitement in her voice. This made him feel immediately uncomfortable, but he kept his mouth shut as she kept babbling on.

"The archaeopteryx, a fossil, is defined as the missing link between the dinosaurs and birds. Instead of feathers, due to your atmosphere you developed a hard carapace…." Her cheeks and neck had swollen to a gammon colour as she talked. His aggravation came out of nowhere.

"It's not very _pleasant_ to be compared with non-sentient species from your planet," he remarked, cutting her off. Laurel stopped gesticulating with her hands. If anything, her cheeks became pinker and her eyes wider.

"I wasn't, I-"

"Charming as your enthusiasm is," he said while getting up, leaving his hot drink. "You know nothing about our species. Much as I know nothing of yours."

She looked decidedly affronted.

"Marik, I was making observations. Surely knowing about each other is a good thing." She had got up too, obviously not comfortable with him towering over her seat.

"No, it isn't," he snapped. She folded her arms and looked at the floor, embarrassed.

"They are not 'dumb', not even in the slightest. They are considered to be very intelligent," she said, her voice wavering.

"Intelligent? Compared to what? What you humans define as 'intelligent' through your carefully aligned categories?"

"You're unbelievable," she snapped. "I'm _trying_ to get along with you. Yet it's so obvious you still hate humans. Why did you invite me into your house then?" He hadn't noticed how close they were standing.

"Your species have a fatal flaw. And that is arrogance. What do you hope to gain by studying these creatures?"

"A life," she said. "I want to reclaim what I've lost. To help conserve these species on my home planet. Where humans, by the way, are doing a grand job of wrecking the planet. You know how many species we've wiped out over the last hundred years? Over _nine thousand_. That might not seem much, but to me, it's far more important than trying to establish something in the galaxy." This didn't provoke a further reaction from him. He saw her large, blue-grey eyes fill with those pathetic human tears as she turned away from him sharply. Laurel left the tea and book and grabbed a small bag by the front door. Swinging it onto her shoulder, she promptly left. Marik continued to stand there, trying not to feel shame. He felt right at first. She was just as entitled as the rest of those humans. He wouldn't be her test subject in her studies.

* * *

If Laurel had returned that night, it must've been well after he'd gone to bed. When he woke the next morning, she was probably still in the spare room. She did work night shifts, after all. He felt no need to check, even if she'd spent the whole night elsewhere. By the time he arrived at work, her sister Anise Carter was there in the waiting room. Her face was pinched and the long formal dress she wore made her skin look pale and washed out. Her hair was pulled tight behind her head.

"Carter," he said, upon entering the station. She stood up immediately.

"Has the report been filed? I heard my sister has also suffered a break-in and assault."

"Your report has, I can transfer a copy to your omni-tool. As for your sister, we're still gathering witness information," he replied, taking out his pass card and swiping it through the machine. He held the door open and motioned her in first. It didn't take long for him to transfer the report to her omni-tool, but he was slightly perplexed by her presence.

"What can I do for you?" he asked.

"I want you on this case. I want you to investigate it," she asserted. "The same for my sister."

"You were told to wait for further information on the investigation," he said tersely, already irritable. "You want to talk to the detective branch, then you'll need the C-Sec CI Department. I'm not part of that branch. I can give you the address, it's not far from here-"

"Won't be necessary," she interrupted. "You seem the only competent officer around here. The Alliance are no help, and your guys at the CID are useless." Her self-important entitlement made him wonder how she got to such a prominent position.

"There's not much we can go on at the moment. It would help the case if you stated what it was that the assailant stole , however," was his reply. An uncomfortable look fell over her face and she folded her arms.

"It's…it's information that could harm my reputation, but also the…" His gaze hardened as he stood there unwavering. This didn't affect her, however, and she swallowed her words.

"It seems there's a lot you haven't told us," he said. "If and when you decide to do so, contact the CID. Despite your accusations, their case completion rate is currently ninety-eight percent. We won't be able to prosecute unless there is enough sufficient evidence."

"I'm aware of that," she said. "I want the attacker caught, and I want the information back. Have the samples from the lab come back yet?" He shook his head.

"We will call you when we need you, Ms. Carter," was all he told her before he motioned her out the door. There was something about the meeting that rattled him slightly. Were the two break-ins and assaults connected between the sisters? Anise Carter was hiding something.

* * *

It was evening number four inside Marik's apartment. She had a couple of hours before her night shift started, yet all her work was spread out around her in the spare room. She lacked the energy for this night's shift, even though it was shift three out of seven. Laurel had made it a priority to avoid Marik since their small disagreement, mostly because he'd deeply upset her, more so than she liked. Beforehand, all he'd done was invoke past trauma and sincere anger, but what felt like accusation of her studies, her precious goals, was now personal. How could he turn from pleasant one minute to cruel the next?

 _You're the same_ , the alternate voice and the devil's advocate spoke in the back of her mind. She'd hardly given him any sort of friendliness. He'd been at work an extra couple of hours, perhaps in the hope he'd avoid her. Stupidly, she hadn't made any dinner and her stomach twisted with hunger. There was no point in studying, not now the words were blurring into each other on the pages, her eyes drooping. The night shifts if anything were good at first, they catered to her night owl tendencies. They helped with the news about her mum; she was busy at night and slept until she woke up to eat before heading out again. Now that the job felt more difficult as the days went by, her mind went to wander again. She fingered a hand through her messy hair, struggling to pull her fingers through the damned curls. The front door sounded, making her freeze.

"Come on, Laurel," she muttered to herself. She wasn't going to hide in this room like a stubborn teenager.

If he was going to ignore her, then fine. At least they'd be even. When the door bleeped open, she saw he was already in the kitchen making something. It smelt delicious, although she wasn't sure if it was of human or turian origin. He was still in his C-Sec uniform without the top half of the armour. It was a contrasting blue and black against his mushroom-brown plated skin. The black long-sleeved top that the officers wore underneath their armour was certainly slim-fitting, she thought. The more she looked at parts of his body, the more she could see the slight avian similarities. Laurel could see the defined hood of his carapace, weaved strength of his arm muscles and the ribbed nodules where upper and lower arms met.

"Hi," she tried.

"Hello. Have you eaten?" he asked, without turning round. Steam from the hobs rose and puffed round his head.

"No, but you don't have to go out to get something. I'll probably get something on the way to work." He was silent as she shook the pan where the food sizzled loudly beneath him. She moved closer, not sure why she was doing it, towards the counter to try to see what he was cooking. He briefly glanced up at her when she did get closer, but he seemed unreadable.

"Your sister approached me at work," he said, keeping his gaze firmly fixed on the food. Laurel braced herself for perhaps another quarrel.

"There is something she is not telling us. Withholding information can be an offence in certain circumstances, but it's certainly not helping the investigation. She will not tell us what the information was that the assailant stole, and why. We cannot go much further without knowing what the motivation was for the attack. There was no trace of the assailant at her office. Do you know anything about your sister?"

Laurel shrugged.

"I honestly can't tell you," she replied. "We haven't been close since we lived with our parents, back when we were teens. She didn't talk to me after my sentence. Had nothing to do with me for years, until recently. I didn't even know she was married. Ian Carter or someone who works in shipping? I find it odd that she would withhold information. All I know now is that she's got a massive pole wedged up her arse, so high it's sticking out her mouth." She saw his mandibles twitch, ever so slightly. He quickly served up the dinner, one plate for her.

"You're not having anything?" she asked, surprised. He shook his head in silence, but guided her to the table all the same. His formality never failed to shock her.

"I'm sorry for how I acted the other night. It was unacceptably rude," he said when she'd stuffed four or five bites into her ravenous mouth. Seafood ramen and _Christ_ it was about the most delicious fucking thing she'd ever eaten. _Sea bass and mussels in a spicy broth with noodles…._ Her cheeks ached with the taste of it. He must have prepared this before, seeing as he'd whipped it up in no time at all.

"I'm sorry too," she replied. Marik looked perturbed.

"For what?"

"For that time in the police station…you'd been so polite and I reacted badly. There was a reason for that, though." She had a burning at the back of her eyes. She had to stop before the dam opened and the waters flowed through uncontrollably.

"There is much that I need to be sorry for…" he murmured.

"Pardon?" He looked away from her. His voice had been so quiet she hadn't heard him properly.

"How is your dinner?" he said instead.

"It's probably the most enjoyable meal I've ever had," she smiled. The serious gaze in his mostly impassive face gave way to brief, untold intensity. He said nothing in return, but continued to watch her carefully. A familiar heat began spreading up her neck towards her jaw. She couldn't bear being watched while eating a somewhat messy meal with the broth dribbling down her chin. It was those eyes of his, the small yellow orbs amongst a sea of black that made up his outer eye socket. There was a question that had been burning on the tip of her tongue.

"Why'd you ask me to stay here?" she blurted. "We…it was bad on Illium. I'm not gonna deny I acted hostile towards you." She heard his intake of breath. _Am I just a petulant child to him?_

"Laurel," he began, making her pause. "I don't want to reflect on the past. I used to do that when I was still drinking and…it never helped me."

"You're somehow always helping me…you stitched my hand up," Laurel continued, holding out her hand. There was a butterfly pattern of stitches on the inside of her palm. His eyes widened in surprise, looking as if he was holding the urge to touch her hand and see it closer.

"It didn't heal?" He was aghast.

"It did," she confirmed. "But human skin tends to scar like this. Especially if the injury was severe." She saw his eyes stay on her hands as she held her chopsticks.

"Your fingers…why didn't they heal?" Swallowing painfully, she set her gaze straight on him.

"I…I was in that cell for a long time. Your soldiers broke most of my fingers…bones need to be aligned correctly so they don't heal crookedly." She looked back down at her food and continued to eat silently.

"Why didn't the Alliance medics re-align them?" he asked.

"They'd already partly healed by the time they got to me. I was arrested so quickly…the doctors weren't too interested in mending them properly and I wasn't their best patient anyway. I put up a lot of fuss. Probably because I knew I was going to prison…for the rest of my life!" The plates at the top of his brow drew together like a frown, his hooded eyes suddenly looking much sharper and smaller.

"They mistreated you?" he said.

"No," she was quick to answer. "I was vilified beyond reason though, I had the media to thank for that. The war had been bloody and short, but people afterwards thought me a terrorist. And who could blame 'em? I apparently killed hundreds of turians and my own crew."

"Your own crew?" he asked, shifting in his seat uncomfortably. Laurel nodded, spooning in the last mouthful of broth. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, knowing this unnerved him. Clearly her parents hadn't taught her good table manners, or perhaps she'd knowingly forgotten them. She drew in a large breath.

"Jensen was our superior outta the four of us," she began. "I was the bomb disposal expert, but we were all tech professionals. The Alliance earlier in the war had sent out a nuclear warhead probe. Realising their mistake towards the end of the war, they sent us out to disarm it. Jensen was a bigoted prick though. He was smart and knew what he was doing. The bomb could be deactivated from a remote control setup, but you had to be outside in an enviro-suit. It'd gone smoothly until I was out there, trying to work the controls. For some reason they'd malfunctioned, so I went back inside to get Jonesy, our other crewmember to gimmie a hand. The thing was, this piece of tech was an older prototype I'd relied on for years. Jensen came out with a new prototype, bragging that it was faster, better…of course it wasn't. He'd tampered with the bomb beforehand, and this was the control to rig it to blow." A dark look crossed Marik's face as she'd told him her story. A prickle of fear ghosted over her skin, pulling her ugly hands under the table hiding them from his prying eyes.

"So what happened then? How'd he set you up?"

"We argued about the tech and to prove my point I snatched it off him. I attempted to use it, but everything about it was off from the start when I was out in the enviro-suit. The controls didn't match up and the signal wasn't channelling through my comm –instructions to guide me, especially at a distance."

"It seems overly cumbersome for such a device," Marik remarked coldly.

"It needs to be remotely disarmed for many reasons I don't have or want time to explain. The bomb was already rigged to set off at a specific time and date, although I'm not sure who the dunce was that decided it. Anyway, I'd unwillingly set off the bomb. I'd twenty seconds to get the fuck into the ship. I'd met Jensen in the airlock, screaming at him to move it. The ship, thank God was already moving, but the pistol was in his hand and he had blood all over his face."

"How did you cut off the turian supply lines? Many suffered because of that," he bit out. She could sense his anger returning.

"He killed our two other crew members. Held me at gunpoint until we got to Shanxi. The ship was already damaged from the explosion of the bomb, despite the quick getaway. I somehow got the gun off him, but we fought until he broke my upper arm. He then told me to shoot down the supply lines, which were housed in these large containers…so I did. Because I felt confident that I'd turn him in…I felt it was inconsequential so close to the end of the war, but I'd been stupid. The ship crashed, with us barely alive. He knocked me out, stashed me in a collapsed building and incriminated me. Made sure all the evidence pointed towards me."

It didn't fill her with anger like it used to, it now just left an unspeakable sadness in her. It had wrecked her life and it could've been easily avoided, or at least partially. Marik had torn his gaze from her, looking deeply into some corner of the room.

"It was unfortunate that you met Jensen again on Illium," he said. For some reason he couldn't quite look at her in the eye now. They were both quiet for a few minutes, deep in thought.

"How were you convicted?" he asked.

"I'd pleaded not guilty, but every single piece of evidence went against me. The jury decided that I was guilty. I'd made a mistake, which played into Jensen's hands and how could the defence excuse that? He rigged the controls to malfunction. He made sure each piece of evidence was available on the ship, and he 'safely' crashed it near where you found me so it all added up," she replied, without emotion in her voice. "The black box, of course, was gone from the ship. He blamed me for its disappearance. The defence obviously used that as a biggie in their case, but it didn't fall through. Not to the jury. Not to the judge."

"Untrained civilians to give a verdict on a stranger based on what is said in that court….Perhaps I can understand it now but at times I find the human criminal justice system unusual."

"Back then I felt some responsibility for it; anger at myself for being duped by Jensen, and tremendous guilt for Jonesy and Kalen, our other two crewmembers who were murdered. For being overconfident and stupid…I had _literally_ set off the bomb, even if I hadn't meant to! What person could deny that?" He shifted in his seat, and she knew this had made him awkward.

"I served the time but it's ruined my life. It's all well and good having goals but I've got a fat black marker on my professional record. That's why I ended up on Omega, they accepted someone like me," she spat out.

"And your family?"

"Didn't support me but that was to be expected. My father was high in the military and my step-mum was his equal in every sense of the word. My sisters just followed him and Emma like lost puppies." She saw his facial expression change. This one she could read now; confusion.

"Step. Mum?" he repeated the word disjointedly. She nearly smiled.

"Not my biological mum," she replied, pursing her lips.

"What about your real mother, then?" Laurel looked away from him again and felt that phantom pain in her chest.

"Um…she supported me wholeheartedly. But that was to be expected. She was my best friend."

"Was?" he asked. _Goddamn him_ , her mind cried. She pushed the palms of her hands into her eyes to stop that familiar burning.

"She died two years ago, Anise told me." She pressed her tongue into the roof of her mouth, anything to make the burning behind her eyes and the tensing of her jaw stop.

" Cwondae," she heard him say what felt like minutes and minutes later. She frowned in response, not understanding.

"Did that not translate?" he asked her. She shook her head in reply.

"It…er…it's hard to explain. It's a non-patronising way to express turian sympathies for loss. It is…derived from an ancient word."

"What ancient word?" she asked, curious and quite frankly, humbled.

"Again…difficult to explain and might get lost in translation," was his reply. Laurel was now uncomfortable in a way she hadn't felt around him before. Her body felt warm, too warm, now that she'd exposed her vulnerable self to his gaze. She immediately felt embarrassed, now that she'd told him such a personal thing, in such close detail. Laurel stood up, taking the bowl she'd eaten from.

"Thanks for the dinner," she said, walking quickly towards the kitchen.

"Laurel…" he began, getting up after her. She tried to ignore him, putting her dirty utensils in the washer. Please don't make me feel like this, she thought.

"Laurel, please," he said quietly. Tears slipped out of her eyes as she slowly loaded the washer.

"Look, I've got things to do and C-Sec must've finished in my place by now-"

"I don't want you staying there," he said. She lifted herself back up, frowning at him, despite the tears on her face.

"What, you just gonna hold me here?" she said mockingly. "I can't eat you out of house and home."

"Er, I didn't…I meant-I think it's still not safe."

"How do you know that?"

"I just…I just have a gut feeling," he said sheepishly. She wiped the tears away with the back of her hand. She didn't say much else, loading the rest of the dishes away and walked silently back to her room. An hour later, she started her usual night shift. His apartment, once more, felt lonely again.


	29. Chapter 29

He couldn't deny that having someone, let alone a woman, share his apartment was pleasant. More than pleasant, especially as he could cook for someone. Being in the military he didn't have such opportunities. She'd stayed for longer than he thought, despite her protests. She would leave soon, he knew that much, but something was keeping him from urging her to return home. He hadn't lied knowing that the attack on both her and her sister was cause for serious concern. Yet he couldn't shed the desire for her to stay. Pavra couldn't stop her teasing, and by now his neighbours began to notice that he had extra company. Most of them didn't bat an eyelid, although a couple of elder turians' mandibles twitched in disapproval. He'd been moved by her story, more than he'd anticipated.

 _Am I beginning to like this human? His younger self would've been disturbed. Everyone in his family would've been horrified if they knew he allowed a human to stay in his home. Working at C-Sec had kept him going since he'd 'stepped down' from the military, and especially since he had given up drinking for good. Yet he had to be stupid not to acknowledge he'd looked forward to returning home. Once upon a time, he dreaded going home to his lonely apartment, being a workaholic and unattached to anyone. He'd kept himself that way for a long time – most of his adult life. He still kept his journal, and when she was out doing her night shifts, he took the opportunity to record._

 _I'm amazed she decided to tell me her side of the story – she'd been framed for her superior's crimes and sent to prison with a unanimous verdict. I still remember my thoughts at that time - distraught at the loss of three hundred of my own soldiers. The blame, inevitably, had fallen on me. No matter what the situation was, I was in command of those men, and they had died under my command. It was accountability that shone in the eyes of my own superiors, I could not handle._

I feel anger at the thought of Stefan Jensen framing Westfahl – but I feel guilt more so. I'd taken my anger and despair out on her. I thought her pathetic yet foolishly brave simultaneously. This combination only heightened the wrath I wanted to wield on her species. Yet despite this new liaison I find myself wondering what kind of person she really is under that pain of a broken life.

Pavra wouldn't stop her teasing, and he felt himself losing his patience with her. Especially since she'd do it unabashedly in front of other turians, who drew stern expressions at her jubilant teasing. She was making him look bad in front of the other officers and he didn't want his reputation tainted even more so than it already was.

"I can tell you're thinking of her," the young officer would tell him at lunchtimes. As much as he'd tell her off and try to keep her in line, Pavra was charming and humorous to be around.

"How can you possibly believe that?" he replied, taking several items of food from the buffet counter as they both slid their trays along.

"Marik, I've known you for a while now… it hasn't escaped my notice that you're distracted," she replied beaming, cheerful as ever.

"Stop it, Pavra," he chided her, but his tone wasn't strong enough to make her back off. They moved towards the table to eat their lunch.

"Were you ever married?" Pavra continued.

"That's enough," he snapped.

"It's a simple question," she said.

"And my answer is simple – none of your business," he replied waspishly.

She stared at him silently for a few moments while he ate. When she realised he wasn't going to elaborate or even talk anymore, she promptly ate her lunch. Yet he realised, later that afternoon, Pavra was poking at something that he preferred not to think about. He wondered if she'd be curled up on his armchair when he'd get home. After driving to the market and picking up a few groceries, his heart sank somewhat when he saw she wasn't on the armchair. He felt a familiar sense of melancholy, one that had often plagued him throughout his life – a feeling that had propelled him towards Reynor. Marik walked towards the spare room where she had stayed, but found that the room was empty, the sheets crinkled from her presence. Perhaps I pushed her too far. He stretched out a talon to grab the sheet, thinking to wash it straight away but all he did was press his face to it. He could smell her; a powdery, sweaty smell and one of washed clothes and past perfume.

He jerked it away from his face sharply, seemingly disturbed with his own actions. _She's a human._ He snatched the sheets, bundled them up and shoved them into the washer as hard as he could. He was pissed off she'd left without saying goodbye, without even giving him a thank-you for his kindness. He'd put a lot of effort in finding out how to cook human food, despite the fact that he could've taken a risk and let her try his own. He'd given her a safe place to stay, although he could've told her to find a hotel until they were done with her apartment. He could've let her stay out on the streets – she was a dirty human criminal…. Marik spent the next hour cleaning the house furiously, to get rid of her scent. She seemed to be everywhere. He found curly hairs on the shower room's floor and on the floor in the spare room. There were some stuck to the cushions on his sofa.

 _Goddamn her, he thought. I need a drink._

* * *

"You're not staying there anymore, are you?" Anise asked to her elder sister as they sat at a bar. Laurel had actually made an effort, Anise thought, glancing at the slim trousers and halter-neck top, which showed off her sister's slender shoulders and tattoo on her upper back.

"No," was the reply. Laurel took a long sip of her beer as if in thought.

"Can't imagine it was very…. well, I imagine it'd be uncomfortable," Anise continued.

"It was a bit… considering turians and humans don't like each other very much yet," said Laurel.

Anise looked down at her drink, playing with the glass. She hadn't drunk very much of it, but the evidence was there. A tender pink lip print on the outside. Laurel wondered why her sister had bothered to invite her out for a drink. A lot of the conversation had been initiated by Anise, and Laurel, tired from her previous shift barely had the energy to talk to her. She'd been tempted by the drink. It was obvious to her now that the Anise she'd known all those years ago had been and gone.

"You heard anything from Fern and Dad? Is Emma still with them?" asked Laurel. Anise shook her head.

"Emma left Dad a few years ago. Have you given any more thought to going back home?"

"No I haven't," said Laurel. "You say you want me to come home but it looks like you're going anywhere but home. You're an important diplomat… why would you go home?" Anise's lips pursed.

"I'm _trying_ with you, Laurel," she said, her eyes sharp. "You make it so difficult. I won't be staying on Earth but I'll come with you when you decide to go down – which should be sooner rather than later." Laurel felt the same blood-boiling fury that she'd often felt when thinking about her family over the last few years.

"Sorry if I don't immediately jump on the next flight," she snapped. "After dad cast me out and never turned up to support me, doesn't make me exactly a loving, doting daughter."

"What astounds me," said Anise ignoring Laurel, standing up out of her seat. "Is that you've barely changed since you buggered off when seventeen. Dad was upset by your behaviour – everyone was. Emma only tried to help you. But all you were interested in was having if off with every boy in the neighbourhood while snorting coke. When Rachel told us you were in the Alliance we couldn't believe it."

"You barely know me," said Laurel, facing her sister with hatred written on her face. Her teeth were gritted. "You know sod-all about what I've gone through in the last decade-"

"Oh tell the story to someone who cares, Laurel! It doesn't ultimately matter what Dad did or said back then. The fact that your father is terminally ill without proper care is the fact here and now. To not return home would be completely self-centred – Fern and I have looked after Dad for years. Emma too. But you're like Rachel-"

" _Rachel_? Since when have you started calling Mum 'Rachel'?" said Laurel. Yet she knew Anise was doing this to spite her.

"Since I realised Emma was more of a mum than Rachel. Dad said you always had too much of her in you – probably why you both ran away."

"No, Mum ran away because Dad was an arsehole who was awful to her and us. He was a strict military man with a pole shoved right up his-"

"Dad is dying!" shouted Anise. "Don't you dare talk about him like that!" Laurel, completely incensed, stood up to face her taller sister and punched her right on the nose. Anise was propelled back onto the checked floor of the nightclub. Crying with pain, she held her nose staunching the flow of blood. Laurel rubbed her hand, which seared with sudden pain. She hadn't punched anyone in a good, long time. That felt good.

"What's wrong with you?!" stammered Anise, blood dribbling onto the pristine (probably expensive) dress. A turian and human security guard approached them both.

"Get out," one of them threatened Laurel. The other bent down to Anise, who was fussing over her nose and dress, asking if she wanted a medic. She heard 'C-Sec' mentioned, and was stopped by the security guard.

"Thought you wanted to chuck me out," she mumbled.

"Lady asked for C-Sec," shrugged the guard.

Onlookers were huddled at the bar to watch the proceedings, giving them drama for their night. Anise's bloody nose looked pink and swollen. Laurel clutched her aching hand as she sat on the stool ignoring her sister. She felt if she looked at her she might be tempted to punch her again and break something else. A tall familiar-looking turian showed up – Marik was the officer for the evening shift. As he took the details of Anise's statement, he passed her surreptitious glances. She couldn't help but smirk at his glances. If anything, he looked like he was trying not to smirk. She gave him her details; he gathered witness information and a medic was called. Laurel barely passed her a glance, or anyone else for that matter. She suspected that her sister would probably press charges – and her criminal record was already blackened at best. A tall figure moved into her view, breaking her thoughts.

"Down the station, is it?" she said to Marik tiredly.

"What about a drink and ice-pack at my place?" he said instead. She felt uneasy as he looked at her inflexibly. She saw his small eyes drift over her form.

"I….er-"

"Your hand looks broken," he said softly.

"Aren't you at work?" she asked him. It was around ten at night.

"Finish in an hour or so," he said to her. "You know where my apartment is."

"I'll probably need to see a doctor about the broken hand, Marik," she said, slipping off her seat, cradling her hand now knowing it was broken.

"You forget I once was a doctor," he said, stepping closer to her. He gently took her hand in his, nearly making her jump back. "I mended your hand once, I can do it again." Perturbed, she quickly took her hand back but nodded. She felt he was the only one she could confide in at this possible moment. Their previous meeting she'd forgotten about. In the hour waiting for him to finish she had her hand x-rayed, splinted and ice-packed and was waiting on his sofa by the time he'd finished and returned.

"No broken bones, but strained muscles," she said as soon as he came in. He saw the splint on her hand. She had it propped up on an ice pack from the hospital. The entire hand had swollen pink. He was quiet as he took off his armour.

"Funny really, I thought I'd break my fingers again – seeing as they've been broken…" she stopped herself. She felt a heat come to her cheeks realising her mistake. He was in his black undersuit as he went to pour a couple of drinks for them both and walked back seemingly unfazed. He handed her something strong smelling and foreign, but not altogether unpleasant. Her cheeks still felt hot and her sudden relaxed pose on the sofa stiffened her muscles even more so. Thankfully, he took the armchair opposite her. He rolled the glass between his talons, as if deep in thought.

"She might press charges," he said, as if trying to find anything to say.

"Fuck her," was Laurel's reply. His mandibles moved a little, as if he was quelling a laugh.

"Your language is still awful," he said. He seemed to be working up the courage to say something, but after a while he leaned back in the chair.

"What made you punch her?" he said. Laurel took a sip of the drink – it was sharp, tangy, and warmed each and every fibre of her body like she'd never felt before.

"She insulted Mum," she replied, twisting round from her previous angle to face him. "When I was ten Mum decided to leave Dad. Up and left. No one forgave her but me. Both him and Anise refused to see her but me and Fern kept in contact. She was the one who introduced me to my love of birds. She was a big lover of nature, although she worked in fashion. Soon gave it up years later to go travelling…." She drifted off, her eyes glazed with a fine sheen.

"Sounds like you were very close to her," was his reply, his voice so low it made the hairs on her arms stand up. It started to feel too close, too personal. She hadn't talked about this with anyone, and she sure wasn't going to get into it with Marik of all people.

"What about you?" she said suddenly, directing the conversation towards him. She realised she didn't know much about him at all. He seemed surprised with her comment.

"As normal as any other turian family. Entered boot camp when I was fifteen. Father was also a general and mother was an engineer that worked in water supply." His voice seemed distant and cold now that he was talking about himself. With the strong alcohol in her, Laurel felt a sense of reckless impulsiveness.

"You _have_ to go to 'boot camp?'" she asked.

"Yes," was his terse reply. "The military is at the heart of our society. We're not individualistic like yours. A lot of your culture is centred on the self, which in part can be attributed to economic influences such as your capitalism." Well, I can't disagree with him there. She suspected he was trying to throw her off, but it didn't escape her attention that he became cantankerous quite quickly.

"You weren't close with them?" she said to him, pushing him further.

"No, I wasn't," he said, stiff now. The glass in his hand remained still, the alcohol un-drunk.

"Did you leave home permanently when you went to boot camp?" she said again. He gave a sharp nod. His talons clutching his glass curled tighter round his glass.

"You talk about your parents in the past tense," she tried again.

"They're dead," he said without emotion in his voice. It was an awkward five minutes, as they both sipped their drinks. There was a question that had been burning in her mind for a while now.

"Why aren't you with the military anymore and working in some dead-end C-Sec job?"

"I don't want to talk about my past," he snapped aggressively, making her jump. She'd gone too far. Still smarting from her previous altercation with Anise, Laurel calmly put the glass on his coffee table and stood up, walking towards the door. She could hear him get up, making her prickle at his quick movements behind her. She could barely hear him call her name, as her ears weren't adapted to hear the lower frequencies of his voice. She could certainly sense he was trying to stop her.

"Look, it's obvious we can't overcome our differences," she said, pressing the front door's controls hurriedly.

"You were deliberately provoking me and you knew it," he said behind her. "You can't overcome your differences, it seems, with anyone!"

"I could say the same for you!" she shouted loudly, whirling round. Her cheeks were red. "I don't have some 'alternate' agenda. I was asking about your family because…" she trailed off hopelessly.

"Because you wanted to move the discussion away from yourself?" Marik said. He was quite close to her now.

" No , 'cos I don't wanna talk about my dead mother, 'cos if I do I might just break down completely and I'd rather not do that in front of a bloody turian…" Swallowing hard, Laurel had to crane her head to look up at him seeing as he was so close now. Heat rising to her face, she twisted to open the door and was gone within an instant.

* * *

They didn't see each other for a while. She was inevitably busy with her studies and he tried to throw himself into work. Her words stung him: a dead end job. They stung because he knew it was beneath him, although he was still serving the public in a honourable way. The words stung because they were true, but also because he valued her opinion. It was also because it was unconsciously done, and he wondered what had suddenly made him so soft. When did he ever value a human's opinion? The time where he begrudged humans seemed far away, as if he was a different being entirely. It had made him realise something though; he had to sever this connection with her. Laurel was beginning to get under his skin and he was not comfortable with it. Circumstance had always brought them together but he would not go out of his way now to either meet or accommodate her. He needed female turian company. That's what he needed. He began to return to his old roots, whether out of self-hatred or a sense of duty he didn't know. Vuren was definitely not above acting superior around him, but at least Marik began to introduce himself to the riff-raff again - the social circles of the high military. On the Citadel, it was teeming with arrogance with its many bureaucrats, politicians and military officials who hadn't been out of the office for a long time. It was why he'd hated his previous job as military advisor so devotedly.

"I understand you've been invited to the veterans dinner next week," said Vuren, at one event, which was based at a bar near the Presidium. They were surrounded by a small group of turians. The rest of the bar was filled with politicians, officials and veterans of different races – asari, salarian and turian mostly.

"Yes, I have," replied Marik coolly. "Just deciding whether it's something I ought to participate in." Vuren's eyes were beady and horribly small, as he took in Marik, swirling his alcohol round in his glass.

"Of course you should. It's been a while since you've publicly shown your face. Why so, Marik?" Marik did not let this faze him. It seemed his old friend had a grudge against him. One of the females there had been catching his eye all evening, gave him a humble nod.

"Where is it you work now, C-Sec isn't it?" said Vuren again. There was a distinct murmuring between the rest of them. Usually this was seen as a honourable public service, but within these circles, snootiness ruled over all.

"If you would excuse me," Marik said, clearing his throat and heading to the bar. The old feelings began to come back; the urge to drink, the urge to hit Vuren until he couldn't stand up any longer.

"Reynor," he gruffly told the bartender, who gave him a knowing look. He was sat at the bar for a few minutes before the female turian turned up by his side.

"I hope you're not planning to drink that alone," she said, somewhat playfully as she took the seat next to him.

"Well maybe I won't now that you're here," he said, taking a long look at her. She had a lithe frame with an irresistibly defined waist. Her markings were a light red but they contrasted rather beautifully with her eyes – a rare blue colour.

"Kyra," she said, bowing her head in greeting. "I'll have what he's having." The bartender made another for her.

"Why are you here with these types?" he asked her bluntly. He'd never been great at initiating conversation, particularly with attractive turian women. She smiled at him, taking the glass from the bartender.

"I don't know," she said, cocking her head. "The company is awful….until I came to the bar."

They drank and talked until they decided they wanted sex with no strings attached. She was amazing, and the tantalising scent of her made him shudder as he fucked her relentlessly on the bed, on the floor, and in the shower in the morning. He asked her if she wanted to come with him to the military dinner, and in her eyes he could see this as being something more than no strings attached. Yet the blue in her eyes reminded him of Laurel. He tried not to look at the turian as he had sex with her, but he couldn't help it. His dreams were plagued with the damned human all night long. He made Kyra a beautiful breakfast the following morning, and their lovemaking ensued. They moved to the spare room behind the kitchen. He thrust deep into her as they ended up on the bed, barely giving her time to breathe.

"You're insatiable," she laughed, tickling his face with her thin mandibles. With each thrust, his face became closer with the sheets of the bed as he propped himself up on his arms. He could smell Laurel; a now very familiar blend of powder, sweat and perfume. She sweated a lot in her sleep and had made her mark on the sheets. He hoped Kyra wouldn't notice as he finally climaxed. When they cleaned up, he found her later leaning against the kitchen counter, sipping on a hot drink.

"I'm sorry, Kyra," he said sheepishly. "I-I haven't…"

"I get it, you haven't had sex in a long time," she said. "But spirits that was the best I've had, maybe ever."

Something left him unfulfilled though. When he went back to the usual mingling with the other veterans, politicians and the like, something sank in him. He thought of drinking constantly, like a hum at the back of his mind. His disillusion with C-Sec became more and more real with each passing day. Vuren and his boss at work did not hold back on gloating in front of him, or putting him down. He wanted the future, whatever and whenever that was. He'd been sober for so long but all he wanted was a fucking drink. He drank caffeinated beverages frequently, just so he wouldn't have to think of it. He had Kyra round more than he thought was possible, which took his mind off it. Yet the urge to drink pulsed through his mind and body at regular intervals. The old torments of bad dreams and headaches threatened to come back. He wanted to drink to forget yet drinking led to shame, which led to more drinking. Each time he had sex with Kyra he thought more and more of Laurel, which led to shame and brief disgust. It seemed to add to his arousal and then desire. With Kyra he soon imagined it was the human instead, visualising biting her smooth neck and thrusting his hand into her lustrous hair.

 _I might as well drink._

* * *

It might've been the night she decided to call in sick, but unfortunately she'd already triggered a review with her manager about her absence. The restaurant Laurel worked at was going to cater for some event that involved the Council, its ambassadors, politicians, high military figures and the like. It was to take place that evening and she had an essay due in for midday the following morning. Her word count was 4,678. She needed to get to 5,000, as well as proofread everything. Laurel absolved herself to the fact she'd need to do an all-nighter, and stocked up with heavily caffeinated fizzy drinks before her shift. It was at times like these she wondered why the hell was she doing this course and this job. _Because of Mum. And because you want to do this, you enjoy it. You want to become what she was._ Some part of her doubted that last one – she wasn't even remotely talented like her mother was. Her fellow colleagues, an asari named Haena and a salarian, Takoln, all lined up with her at the neon lit bar as they watched the large crowd enter. It was an assortment of turians, humans, salarians and asari dressed up in attire so formal Laurel felt rather shabby in her black wrap dress. Their boss had insisted they dress formal – normally no one would see her dead in a dress.

"Really wish I called in sick. My essay's due tomorrow," muttered Laurel to Haena, keeping her forward.

"That's too bad. I don't know how I'm going to last with him gloating and simpering all night," the asari replied, her brow crossing looking at their boss.

"Easy for you to say. I'm gonna regret him ever persuading me to wear this ." They turned to look at Takoln, who was bundled up in a human tux, with a red bow tie. Laurel had to stifle laughter with the back of her hand.

"I think you look very handsome, Tak," she said, making him roll his eyes.

"Fucking ridiculous," muttered Haena.

The guests filled the entirety of the restaurant, their faces lit by the low-hanging amber bar and the large blue fish tank by them. Soft music played in the background. They had to hand it to their boss – he had a wonderful restaurant. Haena and Takoln had almost become friends to her. She forgot how much she liked having friends – especially friends you could not be serious with. Some stuffy salarian official made a speech that made everyone applaud. It was events like this that made the night go quickly. She attended the bar as usual, ignoring the rudeness of some and the overly talkative of the others. _Only one has summoned me as 'girl' so far_ , she thought. There hadn't been any finger clicking yet. Once the main meals arrived the noise seemed to reach its height and there was avid laughter that ricocheted off the walls. All she could think about was her essay. She had to; it was the only way she could keep everything else off her mind. Anise. Him. The usual things that made her worry – her life in general. _Mum. Him again._

Laurel should've known he'd be here tonight, although she got the impression that he'd cast off things like this – especially snooty military gatherings like this. Perhaps he was trying to fill in gaps; there were plenty of them after all. She was busy with someone else when Marik approached the bar, dressed in all-navy turian formal, with a younger female turian beside him. For whatever reason her palms began to sweat and her cheeks felt like they'd recently been parboiled. She finished serving her human customer, turning to fiddle with the mess on the counter. _You can't ignore them for long. Sanders is watching_. It felt like the first time he'd walked into Mozarts all over again. Why did circumstance keep bringing them together? The sooner she was off the Citadel and back on Earth the better. She felt his eyes on her. The dress suddenly was clinging to her skin uncomfortably as her hands shakily swept the used lemon and lime slices into the bin.

"Laurel!" she heard Sanders her boss call. She wiped her hands on her dress and walked over to Marik and his partner.

"What can I get you?" she said.

"Hello Laurel," said Marik, giving her that usual x-ray look of his.

"You two know each other?" said the female turian who, Laurel didn't fail to notice, was very striking.

"I used to frequent Laurel's bar one time," Marik replied, not taking his eyes off her. Laurel gave a small, embarrassed smile. Kyra made a noise that sounded like a 'uh-huh' but made no other comment. Marik ordered a reynor for himself, asking Kyra what she wanted.

"What human alcoholic drink do you recommend?" she probed Laurel instead.

"Err… How about a G and T?" Laurel said. Gin and tonic was a very much out of date alcoholic beverage, but she had always preferred the older, classic drinks. Kyra gave it a cautious sip, her mouth puckering at its taste. Laurel had made sure to give Marik a tiny glass of reynor.

"It's…. interesting," Kyra announced on the gin and tonic. "Can't say I've ever tried that one. And I usually go for the human ones." Trying not to feel snubbed, Laurel smiled stiffly and walked to clean the bar area up. Haena turned up about fifteen minutes later, looking unflustered as usual. Marik and Kyra were still at the other end of the bar.

"What's up? Want me to tell a creep to shove it?" Haena whispered to Laurel after she'd served a particular drunk customer. She served next to Laurel. Haena's eyes caught Marik.

"Is it that turian? He keeps looking at you, despite the half-his-age turian next to him." Laurel's eyes fluttered briefly in frustration and embarrassment.

"No, it's ok. Don't worry," she assured Haena. The last thing Laurel wanted her colleague to know was the history between her and some retired turian general. The night dragged on and as some of the customers became rowdier, she became busier cleaning up after them. She tried not to pay attention to Marik, who was left by Kyra after a while, and mostly kept to himself. So he'd given in to his addiction; she felt a small surge of pity, but quelled it hastily. Tonight she had been working harder than she usually did – Saunders was watching their every move and she'd be damned if she didn't get the bonus this year. She needed it for a flight back home – a permanent flight.

When it finally reached two o'clock in the morning, a fight had broken out. Half the crowd had gone home, with Takoln cleaning out front and both Laurel and Haena cleaning up in the back. There was an almighty crash, the definitive sound of shattering of crockery that came from the main bar area. Looking at each other, Haena and Laurel moved outside only to see two turians fistfight in a way Laurel had never witnessed before. Human fistfights were messy, uncoordinated and ended up bloody very quickly. This was different; she hardly saw any blood and their movements were more calculated and lithe. Marik, not to her surprise was on the floor, while an unknown turian with blood-red facial markings stood above him. Before she could intervene, Marik brought himself upwards despite the other turian's jeering.

"Can't handle yourself, anymore old man?"

This red turian didn't anticipate just how strong Marik was, but he was completely inebriated. He landed a few well-placed hits, but this younger opponent was not fazed in the slightest. Sanders was pathetic and unsuccessful in trying to break them apart. Tables were thrown and more plates crashed as the two bodies rolled and kicked across the floor. Kyra was nowhere to be seen. Some leftover guests watched it with fascination, as if it was some reality TV show. Marik was ultimately beaten by red, who succeeded in slamming him to the floor. One of the chefs eventually came out breaking them apart, even though they'd finished. Laurel saw Marik's blood, a vivid blue, smeared across his face.

"Get out now!" bellowed Sanders. "You are banned from this restaurant! I'm reporting this to C-Sec!" Vuren glared at Sanders and spat blood onto the floor, whilst walking away. He kicked Marik hard in the abdomen as he did so.

"No point, he works for C-Sec," he remarked before leaving the restaurant. Silence ensued as people dispersed and hastily left. Haena and the chef stared at Marik, who didn't lift himself up this time.

"Did you listen to me, turian?" shouted Sanders again, bending down to Marik, who looked near unconscious.

"Gods, I don't think he's alright," muttered Haena.

"He's bloody pissed," snapped Sanders. Laurel bent down to Marik, her hand reaching out to touch the sleeve of his suit.

"I'll take him to A&E," she told Sanders, gently jostling Marik so he'd regain his composure. His eyes flickered in and out of consciousness.

"There's a shit load of mess to clean up!" Sanders replied, gesticulating with his arms.

"There's blood all over the carpet. I'll make up the extra hour," Laurel pleaded with her boss.

After her mentioning the carpet, he seemed to pale and waved her off. She clocked out before helping Marik up and calling a skycab. Despite being a turian, Marik showed all the symptoms of alcohol poisoning like that of a human: his breathing was irregular, he was unresponsive and his skin felt cold. This last bit she wasn't sure about – were turians naturally cold? Their thick metallic skin looked cold, but she didn't know. Her mind was racing as she tapped his omni tool and found his address, telling the cab driver. In her haste she forgot about her bag and she forgot herself as she helped him into his apartment - barely. Marik was heavy to half carry, and she tried not to feel both awkward and delightedly nervous to be so close to him. He was virtually breathing on her cheek. His apartment was dark and cold but she moved him towards the simulated fireplace, covered him with one of his thin sheets (where were the knitted throws, she thought) and brought a bowl of warm water.

She gave him some to drink and used the rest to clean the blood from his face. It was strange to see blue blood dribbling hot and thick from his face, spreading and swirling in the bowl when she rinsed the cloth. She wasn't sure if anything was broken or sprained or even bruised. His eyes were closed as she tentatively wiped the blood away from his plated face, not sure where to properly press, not sure how quickly his blood would clot or not. Her eyes studied his features as her hand drifted, his skin hard but pliable like leather. The way the plates of his face fitted together looked fragile yet sturdy. His once-bright forest green markings had faded, but they were still recognisable. His eyes were small, calculatingly sharp but she liked the soft flecks of brown in them. How hard was his hooded carapace – like that of a tortoise? He didn't look cuddly, she thought. Then immediately wondered why she had done this, and why she was thinking these things.

Feeling exhausted, she laid a pillow by him as he lay down. She took the sofa beside him, and let her eyes close. She fell asleep quickly, dreaming of tortoises.

* * *

She heard a whirring when she woke up the next morning. Laurel jumped up from the sofa, remembering where she was instantly. The body of the turian below her was gone, the sheet, pillow and bowl disappeared. She was still in last night's dress and makeup. The mornings were never kind to her hair – a real bird's nest. Smoothing down her black dress, she padded in her bare feet (where were her tights and shoes?!) towards the hallway, seeing no sign of him. The whirring was coming from the shower. She crossed and uncrossed her arms. She paced, bit her nails and then frantically tried to find her shoes. They were gone. What in God's name. Five minutes passed while she fretted and the door upstairs opened. He came downstairs before she stupidly left without her shoes, but he was holding them as he came downstairs.

"Hi – er, I was just looking for those," she said sheepishly. Marik was dressed only in a bathrobe, but smiled as he passed her shoes. She studied the attractive ridges on his chest but avoided looking at his too-alien-for-now feet.

"So you wouldn't leave," he said to her, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. She tried not to let her jaw gape open.

"I – uh – thanks," she stammered. How was this turian her sworn enemy over ten years ago now?

"I believe I owe you a debt and an apology – but thank you for bringing me home last night," he said to her, stepping close.

"How're you feeling?" She diverted his attention. His stare this morning was near unbearable. He looked like he wanted to devour her, which partly wasn't his fault, all turians looked a wee-bit fearsome.

"Aches and pains and a dry mouth. Mostly hungry," he said. He was oddly jovial this morning. "Would you like me to make you a breakfast?"

"It should be me," she joked, forgetting her awkwardness now. One of this brow plates moved as if to say 'I don't think so' and he turned towards the kitchen. She watched his large feet pad heavily across the tiles as he went to the fridge. His feet were like those of a cat or dog, walking on his toes like they were stilts to spring from. He fiddled around the fridge before he took out some food that looked like eggs, which automatically made her stomach grumble.

"I miss real eggs," she said, hopping up onto the bar stool and watching him with her chin in hands. "We used to have chickens when I was little on a smallholding." She knew he was listening to her even though he had his back turned. At least she knew that much about him – he wasn't the type to ignore people's words, or wait for them to stop talking to say something about himself.

"Where'd you grow up?" he asked her, shuffling the frying pan expertly on the hob.

"I… I was born on an island in the northern hemisphere," she said, unsure how to describe it to him exactly.

"I know a little about Earth's continents," he said, adding seasoning to the scrambling eggs. "What island?"

"Orkney," she said, surprised at him. "An chain of islands off the north coast of Scotland." He repeated the name into his omni tool, which projected several photographs and a map onto the blank wall.

"Beautiful," he told her.

"I'm afraid those photos lie, the weather is never that nice all the time. It's always windy, never gets warmer than fifteen degrees and rains eighty percent of the year." Marik chuckled openly at her comment, something she'd never heard before. She decided to take a risk.

"What about you?" He was silent for a moment.

"A small colony on Palaven, called Gothis," he replied, but his tone lacked the joviality a minute ago. He turned round, setting his sharp gaze on her, plonking the plate down in front of her. Scrambled egg with salmon – she hadn't had this for years. He'd made something similar for himself, although it lacked the cheery yellow colour of Laurel's plate. She thanked him and began eating. A question had been on her mind for too long to keep going now.

"Marik, can I ask you a question?" she asked, watching him carefully.

"Depends on the question," he replied. She sighed loudly.

"Who was that other turian last night? Why… why'd you start drinking again?" He stopped eating and stared at his now empty plate. Her heart began to beat faster.

"Laurel, I don't want to talk about it. Turians don't talk about such matters." He said it without looking at her.

"Why can't you tell me?" she snapped. "You seem so intent on being my friend, yet you don't want to talk about anything."

"Why should I tell you anything?" he exploded, slamming his talons on the table and rattling the crockery. "It's something I'd rather not dwell on, or talk over. Especially not with you - a human."

"You don't 'share' anything with anyone! I open up to you, yet you react with coldness when I ask about-"

"I don't want to 'open up' to you," he said heartlessly. "You humans are completely dictated by your emotions and impulses."

"There's something that's happened in your life you're ashamed of," she continued, ignoring him. "How'd you go from celebrated military general to some alcoholic merc-now C-Sec officer?" Marik stood up to his full height, enraged.

"How _dare_ you," he growled.

"What? To stand up to you and tell you what you don't want to hear? I suppose you're not used to someone standing up to you – a turian that's enjoyed dominating over others!" she shouted, getting down from the barstool. She began to feel her puny five-foot-five in front of him. "That you're some washed-up grumpy arsehole with a habit that you can't kick. That's why you started a fight with that other turian. He used to be you and you can't bloody stand it."

"Get out," he bellowed. There was an edge to his voice that nearly made her shudder.

"You haven't changed at all, have you," she said quietly, after half a minute or so of silence. The air felt charged with static electricity as she heard the low hum of the fridge in the background. "You seemed so superior and sure of yourself when you tortured me all those years ago. Now you've let resentment eat whatever there was of you – which wasn't very much anyway." Alarm bells were going off in the back of her mind, but her eyes had started filling up with tears. He laughed callously, the flanging effect in his tone echoing loudly in the room.

"You're still affected by it! I thought you'd finally let go. You are pathetic - just like you were back then," he said. "Even for a grown woman, you're stupidly naïve."

"Why are you so relentlessly unpleasant?" she exclaimed. "It's hardly my fault we've been thrown together this many times. How can you belittle what you put me through?" How did he remain so unemotional, she thought desperately.

"Nothing like what some of your trigger-happy soldiers put my men through. I'll never forget three-hundred of my men going down because of your incompetence," he spat.

"I told you I was innocent!" she roared, blinking her tears away furiously.

"You still made a grave error in judgement," he snapped. "I believe your prison sentence was adequate enough."

"You unfeeling bastard," she cried. "You drowned me on and off for a week, beat me until I couldn't feel half my body, left me shut in darkness…. if you think I'm pathetic for being affected by such a thing then you're more cruel than I thought. I started to think you might've changed-"

"Save the pity speech," he said, turning and walking away from her. "Get out of my apartment, human, and don't come back."

"Fine, wallow in your self-pity!" she yelled at his back. In anger, she grabbed the plate she'd eaten on and threw it at the wall. It smashed satisfyingly against the wall into tiny little pieces. He'd already turned away from her and stormed upstairs. Laurel hoped he'd stop her from leaving, but it was simultaneously both the easiest and hardest exit she'd ever made from his apartment.

* * *

The next week or so was hard. She managed to finish her essay before the deadline and hand it in, but it was poorly edited and the conclusion was messy. Her enthusiasm for it waned, as did her energy to get to work to do her late shifts. After the fights with her sister and Marik, Laurel felt whatever zest she had in her drain away. She spent her days like a ghost, surviving and not living, wishing her life had gone differently. If only… if only… If only she'd listened to her father all those years ago; not take the drugs, not drink and drive, not go round each and every boys' house and end up having sex with every one of them. If only she hadn't embarrassed him with her drunkenness at one of his military opera evenings, slurring his comrades off or consistently upsetting his second wife, Emma. If only she'd tried harder at school instead of getting written warnings, detentions and temporary suspensions. If only she'd fit in as she was supposed to and wasn't a misfit unlike everyone else. It was difficult to admit that she'd begun to like Marik.

Laurel did not like admitting to herself she might be a tiny bit attracted to him, and denied it whenever it came into her head. Like an old-fashioned gentleman, Marik had lavished attention on her in a way that no other man had. It felt worryingly distasteful to her to feel attraction – he was another species . He'd evolved on a different planet and had completely different biology to hers. At the same time this attraction was like a secret crush that felt rebellious and overly optimistic - one that was probably better in her head than in the actual flesh. She knew the asari mated with many species including their own (they looked similar to human women – did they work 'down there' the same way?), but she doubted after twelve years humans hadn't tried it with anyone else. Yet she rarely saw cross-species relationships, or at least people looking cosy in a bar or on the street. Perhaps people were still wary of humans after all this time. She stayed in bed for a few days, not leaving the confines of her smelly apartment. She didn't ring work or her university. It was unlike her to step into a deep depression such as this one – usually she forced it back and got on with her day-to-day life to make the pain go away. This time she gave into it. Eventually she summoned up enough courage and energy to call work and university, ignoring Sanders' reprimands and saying she wasn't sure if she'd return.

She'd got out of bed after the second day, and by the third day had begun to enjoy her free time. The restaurant had taken up much of her time, like it'd sapped the energy and life from her. She spent time catching up on her sleep, but also time reading books that weren't to do with her studies. Within a space of less than two weeks, she managed to cut off the two people she might've had a good relationship with; Marik and her sister Anise. But it was clear to her now that she could never have a stable relationship with either; their pasts were just too murky. Anise was arrogant and Marik cold. It was obvious enough that the C-Sec faction that Marik belonged to policed her ward. It was inevitable their paths would cross, as it had done on and off for these last few years. It happened on just the one day she decided to visit a café when he must've taken a break. Laurel had immediately held up her large book in front of her space as she saw the top of his brown cowl moved across the room.

"Hello officer," said the human barista behind the counter, somewhat flirty. Laurel's eyes peeped over the top of the book to watch the interaction.

"You'd like your usual?" Laurel watched his agile form lean slightly against the counter.

"Actually I think I might go for something different today," she saw him smile. By the time he had his drink made and sat down near her, he'd noticed. After his behaviour, she should've been the one to walk away from him and give him the cold shoulder. When she locked eyes with him, his brow plates moved to cross over his eyes as if in a frown. His face was predatory, angry, and she felt primitive fear. He got up, leaving his newly made drink on the table and left without causing so much as a fuss. _Why did this hurt so much?_ It ruined her day, and the next day, when she saw him leave another apartment her heart clenched.

* * *

 **AN; Hi! For some reason this website won't let me load documents that have a large amount of text in the doc manager. Then i couldn't edit it either so I've had to crop it down. I resorted to sending the doc to my email, then uploading it on my phone, etc etc. A massive faff. Anyways, this cliffhanger wasn't intended. I'm liking Archive of Our Own more and more these days, so if you're desperate, you can find me and this story on there. Thanks to all those you have read/reviewed/favourited/followed.**


	30. Chapter 30

Haena couldn't wait for her laborious, nine-hour shift to finish. Laurel not showing up made everything else hard for everyone, and she was taking on longer hours just to cover the human's ass. Haena was still young, and wondered why she was working in a restaurant like this. Just before the evening guests began arriving, she noticed a distinctive-looking turian lingering out the front. Takoln passed by her quickly, multitasking.

"It's _that_ turian from the other night…." he muttered.

 _Ah yes_ , thought Haena, _the turian general who got so ridiculously drunk_ …. she remembered hearing an interesting story about him being disgraced and his rank stripped because of his habit. As she stared over at him, he signalled her to come over to him. Craning her head round to look for sign for Sanders, she moved as soon as it was safe to do so.

"What is it?" she hissed. "My job is on the line if my boss sees me here talking to you."

"I assume I'm prohibited from this restaurant now?" the turian replied, his deep voice reverberating.

"No shit, you caused quite the stir," replied Haena, her eyebrows rising in surprise at his stuffy manner.

"Is… Laurel Westfahl here?" he said. "I've tried…. messaging her but she's not…" Haena gave him a strange look, crossing her arms.

"I didn't know you guys were familiar," she said, her mouth tugging upwards into a grin. He ignored her suggestive comment.

"She handed her notice in the other day, but phoned in sick. We have a two-week notice period so her ass still needs to be here. Hasn't been in for, like, six days or something? Why?"

"It's of no concern," he replied shortly. "Thank you." She watched the stiff turian walk off, a certain sadness in his now slumped gait.

* * *

A day later, Laurel returned, but she told them straight up that she'd booked a flight back to Earth in a couple of days time. Sanders was used to her somewhat fickle manner and had already recruited someone else by this time. Haena had read up on Marik the previous night and asked half a dozen people. She wasn't a 'soap-box' for nothing; she lived for this sort of gossip. When Laurel arrived, she wasted no time in letting the human know about Marik.

"Guess who was looking for you yesterday," she began, as Laurel tied an apron round her waist. She shook her bushy head, pretending not to look hopeful. Haena leaned against the door, a playful smirk on her face.

"That old turian, Marik. Said he messaged you, seemed _concerned_ about you. He wasn't looking at you for nothing the other night." Laurel masked her expression of delight, trying to appear indifferent.

"He's no friend of mine," she replied. Haena moved closer to Laurel, trying to capture a glimpse of the human's face.

"You can't fool me, Laurel," she said. Laurel spun round, a blush on her neck.

"If you're implying what I think you're implying, then that's _insane_. We're two different species – it's just… _no_." Haena got even closer to Laurel, hemming her into a corner.

"Speaking from experience, they're good in bed. As long as you let him on top though, or even from behind - turians aren't made to lie down like us," Haena whispered, watching the look on her colleague's face. Patches of pink were littered all up the side of Laurel's neck.

"He might be a bit older than you, but he's good-looking - kind of rugged you know? For a turian anyway. And he seems like a real, respectable kind of gentleman… one of those unyielding military types." Laurel pointedly looked at her in the face.

"Not my type," she said in a hard voice. There was a slight silence between them before Haena continued.

"Did you know he was done for voluntary manslaughter a few years back now?" Laurel now stiffened considerably.

"What?" she said, trying to compose herself.

"Yeah, about three years ago now. Happened in a bar. Obviously he was drunk, but he ended up killing the victim, another turian. A younger soldier who obviously spiked that temper of his." Laurel's eyes were wide, staring at Haena with an open mouth.

"What… How did you…" she stumbled.

"He's a biotic, you know that?" Haena told Laurel, who didn't think it was possible for the human's mouth to drop further, but it did. "That's how he killed the victim. Threw him across the room and snapped his neck."

"Jesus," replied Laurel. "I didn't know turians could be biotic."

"Not many of them. They're not looked on favourably by most of their society. All I know is that those who can master their biotics well are in a different squadron entirely," said Haena, now losing her interest in this topic.

"What was his sentence? Did he go to prison?" Laurel whispered.

"Not sure of the exact details. He probably paid a huge fine but I know he did go to prison for a couple of years. Got out early 'cos of his connections and probably good behaviour. With turians I think they charged both the bartender and his superior at the time for not getting his 'habits' sorted out. Whether you've got an admirer in him or not, he sounds like a _real_ charmer," said Haena tartly, now turning away from Laurel to start her work. Biting back a retort, Laurel was glad she'd handed her notice in already.

* * *

A certain kind of desperation propelled him towards the docking bay of the Citadel. There were several docking bays located on the enormous space station, but this particular dock was for civilian Earth-bound travellers.

"A human called Laurel Westfahl," he told the dock officer. "Has she passed through recently?" The officer, slightly intimidated by the look of Marik, didn't ask questions and immediately looked up the names listed for flight 6-17.

"Her flight to London was delayed due to a mechanical failure. She'll be in the waiting room-"

He was gone before the officer could finish their sentence. It didn't take him long to reach the room, where she was sat with a large suitcase. Her hand propped up her chin, with her elbow rested on her suitcase. He quickly glanced at the large screen to see that the flight had been delayed by a couple of hours, which made him breathe with relief. He wasn't quite sure why he was doing this, all this, for a human. It wasn't busy as it was late at night – often the later flights were cheaper, so the waiting room was mostly devoid of people. She didn't notice him until he came up quite close to her. She jumped in surprise, but didn't move to stand up.

"I don't expect you to forgive me, Laurel. I was… I was unforgivably rude," he told her quickly, his pulse rising. Her brow furrowed as she stared at him.

"You were a real bastard that night," she whispered, feeling intensely uncomfortable. "I don't know if I want to forgive you. Besides you haven't apologised yet." There was a tense silence between them for a few minutes. Today her hair was clipped back and she wore her usual casual attire of jeans, plaid shirt and sneakers. He briefly glanced over her to see two other humans asleep on the lounge chairs.

"I was worried…" he drifted off, embarrassed now he was admitting his feelings.

"What you said was true," she said. "I don't want to force this already complicated relationship as it is. It's obvious we can't get along." She turned away from him slightly, biting her lip in anxiety.

"You know you don't believe that," he spoke quietly. Her body was tense. _Tell her you're sorry. Tell her. Tell her, you idiot._

"Spirits, Laurel… I'm sorry," Marik told her, unable to look at her in the eye the entire time he said it. He could feel her stare burning into him. He felt like he should've added 'for everything' but his pride couldn't take another hit at the moment. It was very easy to read human emotions, and he could clearly see she was shocked by his behaviour.

"But… my flight is due in two hours," she said, her wide eyes drinking him in. "I can't get a refund. I also moved out of my apartment. Someone's already moved in."

"I'm not asking you to stay…" he said. She smirked at him, then.

"I think you are. You seemed quite desperate to say all this to me." He couldn't fault her for that one.

"I've more money than I know what to do with," he admitted. "I can get you another flight."

* * *

They came to some silent understanding. He suggested they go to the bar, which made her look at him incredulously. He told her he wouldn't touch anything alcoholic, and he wondered how much she trusted him – probably not that much considering. They went to a fairly quietly looking bar which also appeared trustworthy and not full of dodgy customers. The lights were dim, lit only by a few amber lights and a neon sign behind the bar. There were a few turians and krogans, the bar manned by a turian. Marik ordered drinks for the both of them, although she probably wouldn't be able to tell that what he'd ordered for himself was actually alcoholic. He wanted to quell that uncomfortable silence. _What am I doing here, why did I suggest this? Have I gone completely mad?_

"Marik I appreciate your concern and your apology but… what you said was true. I haven't got over the past – any of the past."

"Neither have I," he told her. This greatly surprised her. "My problem is not physical. It fills the void, the emptiness. It's not the alcohol, Laurel, it's the effect it gives me. It makes things…. easier. In some ways you're a lot stronger than you give yourself credit for. I could not, _cannot_ , deal with my past." Her mouth nearly fell open in shock.

"Where'd you leave that dickhead from the other night?" she asked in amusement. His mandibles moved into a smirk as he gently laughed.

"You helped me home and I took out my embarrassment and anger on you. I am sincerely-" Laurel turned to him slightly more on her barstool.

"You say sorry one more time and I'll kick you out." She prodded his arm to prove her point, without even realising it. For a moment, as they locked stares, he seemed to lean forward a tiny fraction. The air felt stiff and charged with unexplained emotion and she dispelled it with her great, _big_ mouth.

"You're a biotic," she stated, eyes sweeping over his face. His brow plates fell over his eyes in a frown, making her pale swiftly. He then chuckled at her, suddenly charmed by her boldness.

"Where'd you hear that?" he said, trying to dispel the brief annoyance inside him. He took a large swig on his drink. She turned her head, playing with her glass.

"My colleague, the asari Haena. The night you came in, she recognised you and decided to read up on the gossip."

"Probably not the truth, this gossip," he said, the flanging undertones in his voice beginning to show aggravation. He felt like he was going to drift.

"Look, let's talk about it some other time, Laurel. I don't want to start on the wrong foot again," he implored, trying to catch a glimpse of her face. Her bushy hair covered it, but he heard her sigh. He watched her fiddling for a moment, knowing that this was a tense habit of hers.

"My dad used to say that to mum all the time. There was never enough time for her," she began.

"Your father was in the military?" he asked, feigning surprise, when he'd known all along.

"You know that, Marik. He was pretty high up. That's why she eventually left him. He'd no love in his heart and treated her coldly for so long. I wondered what Emma, his second wife, ever saw in the poor bastard."

"You're not going to listen to your sister's wishes are you," he said to her.

"No. I wanted to see my other sister, Fern, and I'm sick of living in space. But my dad can go to hell. Are you turians always like that, always so stern?"

"No, but we're not like humans, Laurel," he said to her. _Why did she always probe him like this?_ His stiff joints relaxed as he sipped his drink, eyes briefly closed at the taste. They hadn't talked for a whole fifteen minutes, both in each of their own worlds. She seemed to catch on.

"You're drinking," she said, barely keeping the disappointment out of her voice. He took another swig and eyed the bartender for another.

"That's what makes you so destructive, it's the drink, Marik. If you don't stop, you'll drink yourself to death-"

"This human bothering you?" said the turian bartender, giving Marik his drink.

"None-a-ya business," she said to him, not giving him a glance.

"It _is_ lady, it's my bar," came the irritated reply.

"She's not bothering me," replied Marik, giving the bartender an unwavering stare. The turian shrugged and walked off, still displeased.

"Let's get out of here," he said to her, grabbing her hand and pulling her off the barstool. She barely had time to quickly snatch her suitcase and keep up with his long-legged gait.

"You're right," he said to her. "It's destructive. Let's… I don't know what to do… Eating and drinking are my only pastimes."

"You like vids?" she asked.

* * *

She felt a gentle nudge, which in her half-conscious state made her feel irritable, especially as the position she was in was so damn comfortable. Her feet were kicked up in front of her, the place was beautifully dark (unlike her old apartment – thanks to the neon glare of the ward) and she was leaning against something surprisingly soft and cushiony – although the smell was altogether familiar but alien. Thinking of this word, Laurel propelled herself upwards having realised she had fallen asleep on Marik's shoulder while watching a vid.

"It's fine. You didn't miss very much," Marik assured her, choosing to forget the fact that he'd enjoyed occasionally twirling a lock of her hair round one of his talons. He later made them both a late night decaf tea, as she relaxed against the counter.

"I knew you weren't comfortable among that crowd, at my restaurant," she said, breaking their companionable silence, handing him the steaming mug of tea.

"I'm not even sure why I decided it was a good idea to go…" he said, but it was clear he did not want to talk about it further. Why was it so hard to reach him? The low-lying light of his kitchen room cast unfamiliar shadows on his features. She'd been surprised earlier at his change of heart at the bar; she'd anticipated another argument.

"Were you ever married?" she blurted out. He laughed at her suddenly, caught off guard.

"Where did that come from?"

"I find myself wanting to know more about you, despite your… temper."

"Really?" he said, his voice low and suggestive, taking a long sip from the tea. "Well, never 'married'. It's not the same ceremony like you humans have. I've had a few partners in my lifetime, but being so involved in the military high-up was never kind to such things."

"Were all your partners turian?" she asked, the words popping out of her mouth before she could stop them. _Jesus Christ, Laurel Westfahl._

"Yes… where're you going with this, Laurel?" he said, stepping closer to her, his voice humming with yearning. Automatically she was taking a step back, clutching her mug, shrugging her shoulders.

"I was just…" He was then walking her slowly backwards, until she felt the cool sheet of the metallic wall behind. Her body glowed with warmth and anticipation. She pressed the palms of her clammy hands to the cold wall, watching his movements like a hawk. As he moved closer, something in her fluttered and her breath caught. She suddenly felt like a teenager. His mandibles flared in amusement as he gently took both of their mugs and put them on the counter next to them. Taking her elbows gently, he drew her towards him, despite her instinctive hands coming up to push on his chest. His body was thick and warm as he pulled her up against him and lifted her onto the counter.

"What're you wondering?" he purred, suddenly nuzzling his face in the crook between her neck and shoulder.

"Just if you were still with Kyra," said to him, feeling his sharp teeth graze the soft skin on her neck. He was positioned in-between her legs, smoothing his large hands down her thighs and provoking a tremor from her.

"That depends," he said to her, still continuing his ministrations on her neck. It was difficult not to feel afraid yet she was so embarrassingly aroused by him. She saw the sharp plates of his cowl move as he nibbled her neck, his hand then moving upwards to bury in her coiled hair, tugging on it ever so slightly.

"On what?" she replied. His skin was browner in some places than others and she studied the tawny-coloured, rounded bumps that went down his neck, like a speckled pattern. _He's an alien. You're a human. He hurt you. He's hurt you consistently. What are you doing with him?_ She could hear a voice that strangely sounded like Anise's in her head. He then sharply pulled on her hair, baring her neck to him. She couldn't complain; she felt her muscles clench in pleasure and her neck flush. Marik brought his face upwards.

"On whether you want sex with me…-"

"Marik!" she said, horrified and embarrassed. His talons let go of her hair quickly to look at her, brow plates raised in surprise.

"You don't seem to mind," he said, indicating her flushed neck and overall state.

"We're not the same-"

"Are all humans this prudish?" he said, slightly miffed.

"You're too…Well, I guess humans have a track record of being _afraid_ of sex." He burst out laughing, his voice reverberating through her chest being so close to him.

"More importantly, are _you_ prudish, Laurel?" he asked her, tightening his grip on her. She felt his warm breath on her mouth as he spoke.

"Well no, but…." There was something that moved in his face, which was inexplicable. He moved away from her suddenly, leaving her hollow.

"Laurel, I've become attracted to you. I've come to-…."

There was a stunned silence between them as she stared at him and he looked away, pained. Before she could reply, he turned away and disappeared. She continued to sit there, her arms curled around herself. She sat there long enough until the lights automatically went out, not detecting movement. She sat there until her buttocks hurt and her eyes felt heavy with sleep. She thought of wanting this and simultaneously not wanting it. She felt embarrassed and hungry at the same time. She knew she'd come to care for him… care in the loosest sense of the word, a doubtful, small voice told her.

 _You need a friend_ , another told her.


End file.
